UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA.  SAN  DIEGO 


3  1822  02676  3342 


ENGLISH     SPELLING 
AND      SPELLING     REFORM 


LIBRARY 

JNlVGRSITY  OP 

CALlF-jr.NIA 
SAN  DIEGO 


J 


H^imf,'i'i^,',T,YM?.';„9'^'-IF0RNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 


,     3  1822  02676  3342 


I  HE 


ENGLISH    SPELLING 

AND 

SPELLING    REFORM 


BY 
THOMAS  R.  LOUNSBURY,  LL.D.,  L.H.D. 

Emeritus  Professor  of  Knglish 
in  Yale  University 


NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

HARPER   6-   BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

MC  M  1  X 


Books  by 
THOMAS    R.   LOUNSBURY 

English    Spelling   and    Spelling    Reform. 

Post  8vo.     net  $1.50 
The  Standard  of  Usage  in  E.nglish. 

Post  8vo.     net     1.50 

The   Standard   of   Pronunciation   in   Eng- 
lish  Post  8vo.     net     1.50 

Studies  in  Chaucer.    3  Vols 8vo.    9.00 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,   PUBLISHERS,   N.  Y. 


Copyright,  1909,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 

AU  rights  rtserved. 

Published  October,  1909. 


TO 

BRANDER   MATTHEWS 
AS  A  TRIBUTE  TO  A  FELLOW-COMBATANT    IN 
A  COMMON  CAUSE,   AND   A   TESTIMONIAL    OF 
THE  LONG-CONTINUED  FRIENDSHIP  OF  YEARS 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  Confessions  of  a  Spelling  Reformer    .  i 

II.  Attitude  of  the  Educated 56 

III.  The  Orthographic  Situation      ....  94 

I.  the  problem 94 

II.  movement  of  vowel-sounds    .     .  100 

III.  the  vowels 113 

IV.  THE    digraphs I34 

V.  THE    CONSONANTS 160 

IV.  The  Question  of  Honor 194 

V.  Methods  of  Relief 238 

VI.  Objections,  Real  or  Reputed    ....  280 

I.  loss  of  knowledge  of  DERIVATION  283 

II.  LIKENESS     of     SPELLING     IN     WORDS 

WITH    UNLIKE    MEANINGS       .        .  307 

III.  EXISTING   BOOKS   RENDERED   VALUE- 

LESS         314 

/  IV.     IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  PHONETIC 

SPELLING 320 

VII.  The  Final  Consideration 331 

Index 343 


PREFACE 

THE  main  ideas  underlying  the  treatment 
here  found  of  Enghsh  orthography  were 
embodied  in  an  article  which  appeared  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  for  June,  1907.  The  title  it 
there  bore  was  "Confessions  of  a  Spelling 
Reformer."  This  it  was  the  original  intention 
to  give  to  the  present  work.  But  with  the 
changes  which  were  required  in  recasting  the 
article  upon  which  it  was  based,  with  the  great 
expansion  of  many  of  the  points  considered 
in  it,  more  than  all  with  the  extension  of  its 
scope  so  as  to  include  many  new  topics,  the 
personal  element  which  had  characterized  it 
none  too  prominently  in  the  first  place  sank 
into  almost  complete  insignificance.  Hence 
followed  the  in-appropriateness  of  the  title. 
Here,  accordingly,  it  has  been  confined  to  the 
opening  chapter,  and  for  it  has  been  substituted 
that  which  the  volume  now  bears. 

As  published  in  the  magazine,  the  article  re- 
ferred to  was  of  a  length  so  unconscionable  that 
vii 


PREFACE 

I  have  always  been  confident  that  the  editor, 
however  carefully  he  concealed  his  feelings, 
groaned  inwardly  at  the  space  he  obliged  him- 
self to  give  up  to  it.  Still,  long  as  it  was,  much 
which  had  been  prepared  for  it  was  cut  out 
before  transmission.  It  was  felt  that  there  is  a 
point  beyond  which  the  patience  of  the  most 
long-suffering  of  editors  will  not  stretch.  A 
few  passages  which  were  then  omitted  were 
later  made  to  do  service  in  a  presidential  address 
given  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Simplified 
Spelling  Board.  These  have  been  restored 
here,  though  in  a  much  enlarged  form,  to  their 
old  place.  With  them  also  has  been  reinstated 
a  good  deal  of  other  matter  which  had  been 
struck  out  before  the  article  was  forwarded  for 
publication.  I  have  also  made  use  of  several 
paragraphs  which  had  appeared  a  number  of 
years  ago  in  contributions  to  the  Century 
Magazine.  In  addition,  it  is  to  be  said  that  one 
whole  chapter  in  the  volume  has  been  printed 
before,  though  very  much  abbreviated,  in 
Harper's  Magazine.  But  in  spite  of  the  ex- 
tent to  which  I  have  drawn  upon  matter  pre- 
viously published,  fully  two-thirds  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  present  treatise  has  never  up  to 
this  time  appeared  in  print.  This  is  true  in 
particular  of  what  in  my  own  eyes  is  the  most 
viii 


PREFACE 

important  chapter  in  the  book — that  on  the 
Orthographic  Situation. 

The  subject  of  spelling  reform  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  a  soul-stirring  one,  nor  is  any  possible 
treatment  of  it  likely  to  contribute  to  the  gayety 
of  nations.  If  any  of  the  chapters  contained 
in  the  present  volume  be  of  the  slightest  in- 
terest in  itself,  that  on  the  orthographic  situa- 
tion is  assuredly  not  the  one.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  there  be  anything  of  value  in  the  work, 
that  same  chapter  has,  as  I  look  at  it,  far  the 
most  value.  There  is  in  it,  indeed,  nothing 
original.  The  numerous  facts  it  contains  are 
to  be  found  scattered  up  and  down  the  pages 
of  various  volumes — particularly  in  the  intro- 
ductions to  the  larger  dictionaries,  and  in 
orthographic  and  orthoepic  essays  produced  at 
various  periods.  But  so  far  as  I  know,  this  is 
the  first  attempt  ever  made  to  collect  and  com- 
bine and,  above  all,  to  put  in  a  form,  easily  com- 
prehensible by  the  general  reader,  the  widely 
scattered  facts  which  go  to  show  the  precise 
character  and  characteristics  of  English  orthog- 
raphy, and  to  bring  out  with  distinctness  the 
real  nature  of  the  deep-seated  disease  under 
which  it  labors. 

At  all  events,  whether  or  not  I  have  been 
anticipated  in  the  presentation  of  these  facts, 
ix 


PREFACE 

such  knowledge  of  them  as  can  be  gained  from 
this  volume  or  from  some  better  source  is 
essential  to  the  comprehension  of  the  subject 
or  to  any  proper  consideration  of  it.  Designed- 
ly and  avowedly  incomplete  as  is  the  survey  of 
the  subject  here  taken,  it  is  sulhciently  detailed 
to  give  any  one  who  cares  to  vmderstand  it  a 
fair  degree  of  familiarity  with  the  situation 
which  confronts  him  who  sets  out  to  effect  a 
genuine  and  not  a  spurious  reform.  It  is 
furthermore  sufficient  to  give  him  a  fair  con- 
ception of  the  sort  of  work  that  will  have  to  be 
done  before  the  anarchy  which  now  prevails  in 
our  spelling  can  give  way  to  even  the  semblance 
of  order. 

Assuredly  there  was  ample  need  of  a  work 
of  this  sort  being  prepared,  and  the  only  regret 
that  need  be  entertained  is  that  it  has  not  fallen 
to  some  one  better  equipped  than  myself  to 
prepare  it.  For  I  reiterate  in  this  preface  what 
I  have  said  in  the  body  of  the  work  itself:  that 
there  is  no  one  subject  upon  which  men,  whether 
presumably  or  really  intelligent,  are  in  a  state 
of  more  hopeless,  helpless  ignorance  than  upon 
that  of  the  nature  and  history  of  English  or- 
thography. No  serious  student  of  it  can  read 
the  articles  which  appear  in  newspapers,  the 
communications  sent  to  them,  or  the  elaborate 


PREFACE 

essays  found  in  periodicals,  without  being  struck 
by  the  more  than  Egyptian  darkness  which 
prevails.  In  nearly  every  one  of  these  mistakes 
of  fact  not  merely  exist  but  abound.  Most  of 
the  assertions  made  lack  even  that  decent  de- 
gree of  probability  which  belongs  to  respectable 
fiction.  Even  in  the  very  few  cases  where  the 
facts  are  correct,  the  inferences  drawn  from  them 
are  utterly  erroneous  and  misleading.  Many  of 
these  articles,  too,  contain  mistakes  of  appre- 
hension so  gross  that  one  comes  to  feel  that  in 
the  discussion  of  this  particular  subject  the 
limits  of  human  incapacity  to  understand  the 
simplest  assertion  have  been  reached.  State- 
ments of  this  sort  will  be  resented  with  all  the 
venomousness  of  anonymous  personal  vitupera- 
tion. They  have  not  been  made,  however, 
without  full  examination  of  scores  and  scores  of 
articles  which  have  come  out  in  opposition  to 
spelling  reform.  No  difficulty  will  be  found, 
if  the  occasion  demands,  to  substantiate  their 
correctness  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt. 

The  various  chapters  contained  in  this  volume 
follow  one  another  in  logical  sequence.  But  I 
have  also  sought  to  make  each  of  them,  in  a 
way,  independent  of  the  others,  and  therefore 
complete  in  itself.  This  has  necessitated,  in  a 
very  few  cases,  the  repetition  of  statements  im- 
xi 


PREFACE 

portant  only  for  the  immediate  understanding 
of  the  particular  subject.  I  may  venture  to 
add  that  I  have  taken  great  pains  to  make  the 
numerous  details  scattered  through  the  volume 
absolutely  correct,  so  that  he  who  quarrels  with 
the  conclusions  reached  may  have  no  cause  to 
question  the  facts  upon  which  they  are  based. 
If  in  the  immense  mass  of  these  found  here  I 
have  made  anywhere  a  slip,  I  shall  be  grateful 
for  the  detection  of  it,  and  none  the  less  so  if  it 
come  from  the  most  hostile  source.  In  this 
subject  it  is  the  exact  truth  of  which  we  are  in 
pursuit,  and  a  real  though  not  a  fancied  ex- 
posure of  error  is  to  be  welcomed  gladly. 

The  movement  now  going  on  for  the  simplifica- 
tion of  English  spelling  has  in  the  few  years  of 
its  existence  attained  a  success  which  has  never 
been  even  remotely  approached  by  any  similar 
attempt  in  the  past.  This  has  been  due,  in  part, 
to  the  fact  that  an  effort  for  reform  has  for  the 
first  time  had  behind  it  the  support  of  an 
organized  propaganda.  Previous  undertakings 
of  the  sort  have  been  mainly  the  work  of  in- 
dividuals. It  has  likewise  been  due,  in  part,  to 
the  general  spread  of  knowledge  as  to  the  nature 
and  history  of  words  belonging  to  our  speech 
and  the  changes  of  form  they  have  undergone. 
Something  also  is  due  to  the  growing  dissatis- 


PREFACE 

faction,  a  consequence  of  this  increase  of  in- 
telligence, with  the  anomalies  and  absurdities 
of  the  present  spelling,  and  the  loss  of  time  and 
labor,  the  waste  of  money,  and  the  mental  in- 
jury which  the  acquisition  of  these  perverse  and 
perverted  forms  involves.  In  our  country,  also, 
this  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  has  been  strength- 
ened by  the  consideration  that  something  must 
be  done  to  remove  from  the  path  of  that  mighty 
army  of  foreigners  landing  yearly  upon  our  shores 
the  greatest  of  the  stumbling-blocks  in  the  way 
of  the  acquisition  of  the  English  language,  nec- 
essary as  the  knowledge  of  it  is  to  any  com- 
prehension by  them  of  the  laws  and  institutions 
and  political  ideas  of  the  land  they  are  hence- 
forth to  make  their  home. 

Flourishing  as  the  present  movement  as- 
suredly is,  it  of  course  may  fail  ultimately,  as 
have  several  which  have  preceded  it.  It  cer- 
tainly will  fail  if  the  propaganda  does  not  con- 
tinue to  be  vigorously  pressed.  It  will  fail  if 
proposals  are  adopted  and  methods  are  followed 
which,  while  pleasing  sciolists,  do  not  recommend 
themselves  to  scholars.  That  experiment  has 
been  too  often  tried  to  leave  us  in  any  doubt  as 
to  the  result.  But  whatever  be  the  success  or 
failure  which  may  attend  the  present  move- 
ment, none  the  less  am  I  confident  that  the 
xiii 


PREFACE 

English  race  will  not  be  content  to  sit  down  for- 
ever with  a  system  of  spelling  which  has  noth- 
ing to  recommend  it  but  custom  and  prejudice, 
nothing  to  defend  it  but  ignorance,  nothing  but 
superstition  to  make  it  an  object  of  veneration. 
An  orthography  which  defies  the  main  object 
for  which  orthography  was  created  cannot  con- 
tinue, with  the  advance  of  knowledge,  to  be 
endured  forever;  for  speaking  with  absolute 
reverence,  it  can  be  said  of  it  that,  not  being  of 
God,  it  cannot  stand. 


ENGLISH    SPELLING   AND 
SPELLING    REFORM 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 
SPELLING    REFORM 

CHAPTER  I 

CONFESSIONS    OF    A    SPELLING    REFORMER 

IT  was  my  fortune  in  1906  to  be  wandering 
in  lands  where  English  is  not  spoken,  when 
the  President  of  the  United  States  issued  his 
famous  order  in  regard  to  spelling.  Little, 
therefore,  of  the  comment  it  occasioned  met  my 
eyes,  either  at  the  time  or  long  after;  little  of 
the  clamor  it  excited  reached  my  ears.  But 
after  my  return  to  my  own  country  I  had  the 
opportunity  to  look  over  no  small  number  of 
the  productions  which  came  out  in  opposition 
to  it  or  in  criticism  of  it,  whether  they  appeared 
in  the  form  of  reported  interviews  with  promi- 
nent persons,  of  leaders  in  newspapers  or  letters 
to  them,  or  of  elaborate  articles  in  periodicals. 
Most  of  these  written  pieces  were  anonymous; 
I 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

but  some  of  them  came  avowedly  from  men  of 
recognized  eminence  in  various  fields  of  in- 
tellectual activity. 

It  is  with  no  intention  of  conveying  the 
slightest  suggestion  of  disparagement  of  the 
authors  of  these  various  articles  that  I  say  that 
not  one  of  them  contained  a  single  argument 
which  every  person  who  has  paid  even  a  super- 
ficial attention  to  the  history  of  English  orthog- 
raphy has  not  been  familiar  with  from  the  time 
of  his  first  entering  upon  the  study.  Even 
the  jokes  and  sarcastic  remarks  of  the  news- 
papers were  hoary  with  the  rime  of  age.  In  the 
case  of  these  latter  something  must  be  con- 
ceded to  the  inherent  difficulty  of  the  attack, 
without  imputing  the  feebleness  of  it,  or  the 
lack  of  originality  in  it,  to  mere  barrenness  of 
brain.  From  the  very  nature  of  things  it  is 
hard  to  be  jocose  upon  a  subject  of  which  one 
knows  nothing  at  all.  A  difficulty  of  a  like 
nature  attended  the  production  of  the  argu- 
ments which  were  put  forth  seriously.  They 
brought  forward  no  new  ideas;  they  simply  in- 
spired recollections.  It  is  only  the  fact  that 
the  writers  of  the  more  elaborate  articles  seemed 
to  regard  the  reasons  they  advanced  as  novel,  if 
not  startling,  contributions  to  thought,  which 
to  the  mind  of  the  veteran  of  orthographical 

2 


SPELLING    REFORM 

wars  imparted  a  certain  languid  interest  to  what 
they  said.  One  comes,  in  truth,  to  feel  a  sort 
of  respect  for  the  continuous  incapacity  to  com- 
prehend the  exact  nature  of  the  problem  pre- 
sented, which  year  after  year  of  discussion  does 
not  impair,  nor  affluence  of  argument  disturb. 
As  in  a  number  of  the  pieces  I  was  privileged 
to  see  I  found  my  own  name  mentioned,  I  trust 
it  will  not  be  deemed  a  mark  of  offensive  egotism 
— egotism  of  one  sort  it  assuredly  is — if  I  take 
the  occasion  of  its  appearance  in  these  articles 
to  state  my  views  exactly  on  various  points 
connected  with  the  subject  instead  of  having 
them  stated  for  me  inexactly  by  others.  As 
confessions  seem  now  to  be  the  literary  fashion, 
it  has  seemed  best  to  put  what  I  have  to  say 
in  that  form.  The  method  of  personal  state- 
ment enables  me  also  to  bring  out  more  dis- 
tinctly not  merely  the  views  held  by  many,  but 
also  the  reasons  by  which  their  course  has  been 
influenced.  This  consequently  may  serve  as  an 
excuse  for  a  mode  of  utterance  which  in  the  case 
of  one  so  obscure  as  myself  would  be  otherwise 
out  of  place.  Still,  while  the  sentiments  indi- 
cated may  be  entertained  by  numbers,  they  are 
here  to  be  considered  as  nothing  more  than  my 
own  individual  opinions.  I  do  not  pretend  to 
speak  with  authority  for  any  person  but  my- 
3 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

self,  least  of  all  for  any  organization  which  has 
started  out  to  carry  on  the  work  of  spelling 
reform.  Some,  indeed,  of  the  particular  views 
I  express  may  possibly,  or,  it  may  be,  will 
probably,  meet  with  the  dissent  of  those  who 
hold  in  general  the  same  beliefs. 

Now  that  the  storm  and  stress  which  followed 
the  President's  order  is  over,  now  that  every  one 
seems  to  have  regained  his  equanimity,  a  fitting 
moment  has  apparently  arrived  to  consider  the 
whole  subject  itself  without  reference  to  the 
particular  proposals  of  anybody  or  of  any  or- 
ganization. This  can  be  done  at  present  with 
a  certain  detachment  from  the  feelings  which 
attended  the  heated  controversy  that  then  pre- 
vailed— at  least,  with  as  much  detachment  as  is 
consistent  with  the  possession  of  personal  con- 
victions. As  this  treatise,  however,  is  avowedly 
egotistical,  I  may  be  permitted,  before  entering 
into  the  general  discussion,  to  refer  to  a  specific 
charge  which  has  been  regularly  brought  against 
me  as  well  as  against  others.  It  is  all  the  more 
desirable  to  do  so  because  the  consideration  of 
it  leads  directly  to  the  comprehension  of  what 
is  really  the  great  mainstay  of  the  existing  orthog- 
raphy. The  charge  is  that  in  what  I  publish 
I  do  not  use  myself  the  new  spellings,  save,  at 
least,  on  the  most  limited  scale.  I  am  incon- 
4 


SPELLING    REFORM 

sistent.  My  practice  does  not  conform  to  my 
pretended   belief. 

Now  it  is  very  easy  to  retort  the  charge  of 
inconsistency.  No  one  can  use  our  present 
spelling  without  being  inconsistent;  for  Eng- 
lish orthography  is  nothing  but  a  mass  of  in- 
consistencies. Take  one  of  the  commonest  of 
illustrations  furnished  by  those  opposed  to  any 
reform.  You  must  not  drop  the  u  from  honour, 
they  tell  us,  because  that  unnecessary  vowel 
shows  that  the  word  was  derived  immediately 
from  the  French,  and  only  remotely  from  the 
Latin.  On  the  contrary,  you  must  retain  the 
b  of  debt  and  doubt,  though  this  letter  hides  their 
derivation  from  the  French  dette  and  doute,  and 
gives  the  erroneous  impression  that  they  were 
taken  directly  from  the  Latin.  Still,  it  is  no  real 
justification  for  one's  own  conduct  to  prove 
that  similar  conduct  is  pursued  by  those  who 
criticise  him  for  it.  Let  me  bring  forward  a 
few  reasons  which  have  influenced  my  own 
action,  as  doubtless  they  have  more  or  less  that 
of  others. 

There  is,  first,  the  printing-office  to  be  con- 
sulted. This  has  generally  an  orthography  of 
its  own,  and  does  not  like  to  have  it  deviated 
from.  There  is  next  the  publisher  to  be  con- 
sidered. Even  if  he  is  personally  indifferent  on 
5 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

the  subject  of  spelling,  he  has  a  pecuniary  in- 
terest in  the  work  he  is  bringing  out.  Naturally 
he  is  reluctant  to  have  introduced  into  it  any- 
thing which  will  tend  to  retard  its  success  with 
the  public.  As  he  usually  has  the  means  of  en- 
forcing his  views,  he  is  very  much  inclined  to 
employ  them. 

But  far  more  important,  far  more  restraining 
than  the  attitude  either  of  printer  or  publisher 
is  that  of  the  public  itself.  It  is  not  simply 
indifferent:  it  is  largely  hostile.  To  many  men 
a  strange  spelling  is  offensive;  by  the  ill-in- 
formed it  is  regarded  as  portending  ruin  to 
the  language.  Necessarily  no  writer  desires  to 
limit  his  possible  audience  by  running  counter 
to  its  feelings  in  a  matter  which  has  no  direct 
bearing  upon  the  subject  of  which  he  treats. 
In  my  own  case  the  public — most  unwisely, 
as  it  naturally  strikes  me — is  none  too  anxious 
under  any  circumstances  to  read  what  I  write. 
Why,  therefore,  should  I  convert  what  is  in 
my  eyes  a  culpable  lack  of  interest  into  absolute 
indifference  or  active  hostility  by  rousing  the 
prejudices  of  readers  in  consequence  of  insisting 
upon  a  point  which  has  only  a  remote  concern 
with  the  actual  topic  that  may  be  under  con- 
sideration ? 

These  are  reasons  which  I  could  fairly  and 
6 


SPELLING    REFORM 

honestly  give.  But,  after  all,  the  main  one  is 
something  entirely  different,  something  alto- 
gether independent  of  the  feelings  of  others. 
With  advancing  years  knowledge  may  or  may 
not  come;  but  altruism  distinctly  lingers.  As 
we  get  along  in  life  most  of  us  lose  the  inclina- 
tion to  be  constantly  engaged  in  fighting  strenu- 
ously for  the  progress  of  even  the  most  praise- 
worthy causes.  The  desire  wanes  of  benefiting 
your  fellow-man,  while  encountering  in  so  doing 
not  merely  his  indifference,  but  his  active  hos- 
tility; of  urging  him  to  show  himself  rational 
while  his  proclivities  are  violently  asinine.  Even 
the  far  keener  enjoyment  of  rendering  him 
miserable  by  making  evident  to  his  reluctant 
but  slowly  dawning  intelligence  how  much  of 
an  ignoramus,  not  to  say  idiot,  he  has  shown 
himself  in  his  acts  and  utterances — even  this 
most  poignant  of  pleasures  loses  its  relish  if  in- 
dulgence in  it  can  be  secured  only  at  the  cost  of 
much  personal  trouble.  This  is  just  as  true  of 
spelling  reform  as  of  any  other  movement.  In 
fact,  indifference  to  the  propagation  of  the  truth 
about  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  species  of  that 
very  altruism  of  which  I  have  just  disclaimed 
the  practice.  If  a  man  seriously  believes  that 
it  is  essential  to  the  purity  and  perfection  of  the 
English  language  that  honor  should  be  spelled 
7 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

with  a  u  and  horror  without  it;  that  honorable 
should  be  spelled  with  a  u  and  honorary  without 
it;  that  meter  should  have  its  final  syllable  in 
re  and  diameter  and  hexameter  in  er;  that  deign 
should  terminate  in  eign  and  its  allied  com- 
pound form  disdain  in  ain;  that  convey  should 
end  in  ey  and  inveigh  in  eigh;  that  precede  should 
end  in  ede  and  proceed  in  eed;  that  fancy  should 
begin  with  /  and  phantom  with  ph;  that  deceit 
should  be  written  without  p  and  receipt  with 
it;  if,  in  fine,  spelling  in  different  ways  words 
which  have  the  same  origin  brings  him  pleasure, 
why  not  leave  him  in  the  undisturbed  enjoy- 
ment of  this  mild  form  of  imbecility?  He  will 
not  be  made  happier  by  being  made  wiser. 

It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  the  position  of  the 
man  who  has  got  along  in  years  should  tend  to 
be  rather  that  of  a  looker-on  than  of  a  par- 
ticipant in  the  strife.  He  feels  more  and  more 
disposed  to  content  himself  with  approving  and 
applauding  the  work  of  the  younger  and  better 
soldiers.  My  own  attitude  is,  indeed,  very  much 
the  same  as  that  once  described  to  me  as  his  by 
my  dear  and  honored  friend,  the  late  Professor 
Child  of  Harvard.  He  sometimes  did  and  some- 
times did  not  employ  in  his  correspondence  the 
reformed  spellings  which  were  recommended  by 
the  English  and  American  philological  societies. 


SPELLING    REFORM 

It  may  be  added,  in  passing,  that  these  changes, 
with  the  weight  of  the  greatest  scholars  of  both 
countries  behind  them,  were  in  general  treated 
with  almost  absolute  indifference;  or,  if  con- 
sidered at  all,  met  usually  with  the  same  un- 
intelligent opposition  as  have  the  lists  put  forth 
by  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board.  "  If  I  am 
writing,"  said  Professor  Child,  "to  one  of  these 
educated  ignoramuses  who  think  there  is  some- 
thing sacred  about  the  present  orthography,  I 
always  take  care  to  use  the  altered  forms;  but 
when  writing  to  a  man  who  really  knows  some- 
thing about  the  subject,  I  am  apt  not  to  take 
the  extra  trouble  required  to  conform  to  the 
recommendations  made  by  the  two  philological 
societies."' 

In  not  following  my  faith  by  my  practice,  I 

^  As  this  opinion  of  Professor  Child  has  been  ques- 
tioned, I  give  here  an  extract  from  a  letter  written  by 
him  for  publication,  and  printed  in  the  Home  Journal 
of  New  York  for  June  21,  1882.  This  paper  was  then 
engaged  in  gathering  the  opinions  of  scholars  and  men 
of  letters  on  the  subject  of  English  orthography.  "  One 
of  the  most  useful  things  just  now,"  wrote  Professor 
Child,  "is  to  break  down  the  respect  which  a  great, 
foolish  public  has  for  the  established  spelling.  Some 
have  a  religious  awe,  and  some  have  an  earth-born 
passion  for  it.  At  present  I  don't  much  care  how 
anybody  spells,  so  he  spell  different  from  what  is  estab- 
lished. Any  particular  individual  spelling  is  likely  to 
be  more  rational  than  the  ordinary." 

9 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

am  perfectly  willing  to  concede  that  my  course 
is  not  merely  inconsistent,  but  unmanly.  I 
shall  not  quarrel  with  any  one  who  calls  it 
pusillanimous,  and  even  mean.  Intimations  to 
that  effect  have  been  made  to  me  more  than 
once  in  private  letters.  These  reproaches  I 
recognize  as  deserved,  and  I  therefore  receive 
them  with  meekness.  But  one  of  the  reasons.^ 
given  above  for  my  action,  or  rather  inaction — 
the  hostility  of  readers  to  new  spellings — points 
directly  to  the  one  mighty  obstacle  which  stands 
in  the  way  of  reforming  our  orthography.  It 
is,  in  truth,  all-potent.  Singularly  enough,  how- 
ever, it  is  so  far  from  receiving  consideration 
that  it  hardly  ever  receives  much  more  than 
mere  mention. 

The  regard  for  our  present  orthography  is  not 
based  at  all  upon  knowledge,  or  upon  reason. 
It  owes  its  existence  and  its  strength  almost 
entirely  to  sentiment.  We  give  it  other  names, 
indeed.  We  describe  the  motives  which  ani- 
mate us  in  big  phrases.  We  talk  of  our  devotion 
to  the  language  of  our  fathers,  while  displaying 
the  amplest  possible  ignorance  of  what  that 
language  was.  We  please  ourselves  with  the 
notion  that  in  denouncing  any  change  we  are 
nobly  maintaining  the  historic  continuity  of  the 
speech.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  governed 


SPELLING    REFORM 

by  the  cheap  but  all-powerful  sentiment  of 
association.  We  like  the  present  orthography 
because  we  are  used  to  it.  When  once  the  point 
of  intimate  familiarity  with  the  form  of  a  word 
has  been  reached,  it  makes  thenceforward  no 
diflference  to  us  how  wide  is  the  divergence  be- 
tween the  pronunciation  and  the  spelling  which 
is  ostensibly  designed  to  represent  the  pro- 
nunciation. As  little  difference  does  it  make 
if  the  form  with  which  we  have  become  familiar 
not  merely  fails  to  indicate  the  origin  of  the 
word,  but  on  the  contrary  suggests  and  even 
imposes  upon  the  mind  a  belief  in  an  utterly 
false  derivation.  Such  considerations  do  not 
affect  us  in  the  slightest.  We  simply  like  the 
spelling  to  which  we  are  accustomed;  we  dislike 
the  spelling  to  which  we  are  not  accustomed. 
No  one  who  familiarizes  himself  with  the  articles 
in  newspapers  and  magazines  written  by  the 
defenders  of  the  present  orthography  can  enter- 
tain the  slightest  doubt  on  this  point.  The 
arguments  advanced  amount  to  nothing  more 
than  this,  that  any  new  spelling  employed  is 
distasteful  to  the  writer  because  it  breaks  up 
old   associations. 

Because  hostility  to  change  springs  not  from 
knowledge,  not  from  reason,  but  almost  entirely 
from  sentiment,  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  the 
II 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

obstacle  it  presents  to  reform  is  a  slight  one. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  peculiarly  formidable. 
So  far  from  being  a  feeble  barrier  to  overcome, 
it  is  of  the  very  strongest,  if  not  the  very  strong- 
est. The  fact  that  in  numerous  instances  it  is 
based  upon  foundations  demonstrably  irrational 
does  not  in  the  least  impair  its  influence.  In 
any  matter  of  controversy  we  can  fight  with 
assurance  of  success  against  beliefs  which  the 
holder  has  honestly,  even  if  mistakenly,  adopt- 
ed, because  he  deems  them  to  be  in  accordance 
with  reason.  Appeal  can  then  be  made  to 
his  intelligence.  But  not  so  in  the  case  of  a 
belief  based  primarily  upon  sentiment.  This  is 
constantly  exemplified  in  controversies  about 
politics  or  religion.  But  nowhere  is  the  fact 
more  conspicuous  than  in  the  matter  of  English 
orthography.  To  spell  differently  from  what 
we  have  been  trained  to  spell  irritates  many  of 
us  almost  beyond  the  point  of  endurance.  We 
can  manage  to  put  up  with  variations  from  the 
present  orthography  prevailing  in  past  centuries 
when  we  come  to  learn  enough  about  the  sub- 
ject to  be  aware  that  such  variations  existed. 
The  writers  of  those  times  had  not  reached  that 
exalted  plane  of  perfect  propriety  on  which 
it  is  our  good  fortune  to  live  and  move.  But 
no  contemporary  must  venture  to  free  himself 


SPELLING    REFORM 

from  the  cast-iron  shackles  in  which  we  have  in- 
closed the  form  of  our  words  without  subjecting 
his  action  to  our  indignant  protest. 

It  is  vain  to  deny  the  strength  of  the  feeling 
of  association.  Even  to  those  who  have  as- 
cended out  of  the  atmosphere  of  serene  igno- 
rance in  which  it  flourishes  most  luxuriantly,  a 
new  spelling  is  always  apt  to  come  with  some- 
thing of  a  sense  of  shock.  No  matter  how  fully 
we  recognize  the  impropriety  and  even  ab- 
surdity of  the  old  form,  none  the  less  does  the 
sentiment  of  association  cling  to  it  and  affect  our 
attitude  toward  it.  As  this  treatise  sets  out  to 
deal  somewhat  with  my  own  impressions,  I  may 
be  pardoned  the  employment  of  a  personal  ex- 
emplification of  the  point  under  discussion. 
German  is,  for  practical  purposes,  mainly  a 
phonetic  tongue.  In  modern  times  anomalies 
which  once  existed  have  been  largely  swept 
away.  It  is  merely  a  question  of  a  few  years 
when  they  will  all  go;  for,  Germany  being  a 
nation  of  scholars,  scholars  have  there  some 
influence.  In  studying  the  language  as  a  boy  I 
learned  some  spellings  now  rarely  used.  For 
instance,  thun  and  todt  appeared  then  in  the 
forms  here  given.  Now  I  see  the  one  without 
the  h,  the  other  without  the  d.  I  recognize  the 
propriety  of  the  action  taken  in  dropping  the 
13 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

unpronounced  letters.  But,  while  my  judgment 
is  perfectly  convinced  of  its  correctness,  for  the 
life  of  me  I  cannot  get  over  a  certain  sense  of 
strangeness  when  I  come  across  the  words  in 
their  new  form — at  least,  it  was  some  time  before 
I  could. 

How  much,  indeed,  we  are  all  affected  by  this 
influence  of  association  one  illustration  will 
make  convincingly  clear.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  there  existed  an  occasional  tendency  to 
spell  hot  with  an  initial  w.  It  was  an  effort 
to  represent  the  pronunciation  of  the  word 
which  had  begun  to  prevail  in  certain  quarters. 
It  did  not  drive  out  the  present  form,  but  it 
existed  alongside  of  it.  It  was  a  spelling  to 
which  Spenser  was  particularly  addicted.  There 
are  many  instances  of  the  use  of  it  in  the 
Faerie  Queene,  of  which  the  following  may  serve 
as  examples: 

To  pluck  it  out  with  pincers  firie  whot. 

— Book  I,  canto  x,  st.  26. 

He  soone  approached,  panting,  breathlesse,  whot. 

— Book  II,  canto  iv,  st.  37. 
Upon  a  mightie  furnace,  burning  whote. 

— Ih.,  canto  ix,  st.  29. 

Now,  at  the  present  day,  anybody  would  be 
either  amused  at  the  appearance  of  such  a  form 
as  whot  if  one  so  spelled  the  word  ignorantly,  or 
14 


SPELLING    REFORM 

outraged  if  he  did  it  purposely.  But  all  of  us 
in  the  case  of  ivhole  are  doing  precisely  the  very 
thing  we  should  condemn  in  the  case  of  what. 
In  the  former  of  these  words  the  initial  letter  has 
now  no  more  excuse  for  its  existence  than  in  the 
latter.  Whole,  by  derivation,  is  precisely  the  same 
word  as  hale.  The  only  real  difference  between 
these  forms  is  the  difference  of  vowel  sound 
caused  by  dialectical  variation.  They  are  both 
related  to  heal  and  health.  The  closeness  of 
the  tie  between  them  all  is  brought  out  distinctly 
in  the  phrase  "whole  and  sound."  For  cen- 
turies, too,  the  word  had  the  spelling  hole.  At  a 
later  period,  like  hot,  it  took  unto  itself  an 
initial  w;  unlike  hot,  it  continued  to  retain  it. 
Consequently,  we  find  exemplified  in  the  two 
words  the  same  old  influence  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking.  The  very  persons  who  would 
be  horrified,  and  properly  horrified,  at  giving 
to  hot  the  spelling  whot,  would  be  equally 
horrified  at  taking  away  from  whole  a  letter 
which,  besides  being  never  heard  in  pronuncia- 
tion, disguises  the  derivation;  and  the  recogni- 
tion of  this  latter  at  a  glance  is  insisted  upon 
by  many  as  essential  to  the  proper  representa- 
tion of  the  word  as  well  as  to  their  own  personal 
happiness.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  it  is  sentiment 
that  rules  us,  not  sense. 
15 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

It  is  unquestionably  a  distinct  objection  to 
the  introduction  of  new  spellings  that  they  have 
the  temporary  effect  of  breaking  up  old  associa- 
tions. They  consequently  distract  the  attention 
of  the  reader  from  the  idea  the  word  conveys 
to  the  word  itself.  This  would  to  some  extent 
be  true,  even  were  he  strongly  in  favor  of  the 
changes  made.  Necessarily  this  is  much  more 
the  case  when  he  is  bitterly  opposed  to  them, 
and  honestly,  no  matter  how  unintelligently, 
fancies  that  the  fate  of  the  language  is  bound 
up  with  the  continuance  of  some  particular 
method  of  spelling.  It  is  true  that  the  fre- 
quent occurrence  of  a  new  form  on  the  printed 
page  soon  dispels  the  sense  of  strangeness 
with  which  it  is  greeted  at  first.  But  to  pro- 
duce that  effort  speedily,  the  reader  must  have 
an  open  mind.  An  open  mind,  however,  is 
just  what  the  ordinary  believer  in  the  present 
orthography  lacks.  He  not  only  conceives  an 
intense  prejudice  against  the  new  form  itself, 
but  he  is  sometimes  unwilling  to  read  the  book 
or  article  containing  it.  This,  I  have  already 
intimated,  is  my  main  reason  for  not  adopting 
in  practice  several  spellings  which  in  theory 
I  approve.  Some  of  the  old  ones  to  which 
many  are  devoted  are  too  much  for  even  the 
large  charity  I  entertain  for  the  most  un- 
i6 


SPELLING    REFORM 

desirable  citizens  of  the  orthographic  common- 
wealth. But  with  others  I  put  up  because  it  is 
only  by  using  them  that  one  can  succeed  in 
getting  a  hearing  from  those  who  most  need  to 
be  made  conscious  of  the  extent  of  their  lin- 
guistic ignorance  and  the  depth  of  their  or- 
thographic depravity.  It  is  the  unbelievers 
that  require  conversion,  and  not  those  who  are 
already  firm  in  the  faith.  Accordingly,  for  the 
sake  of  a  temporary  communication  between 
the  multitude  which  still  continues  to  sit  in 
linguistic  darkness  and  him  who  seeks  to  en- 
lighten them,  the  old  spelling  may  be  properly 
used  as  a  sort  of  material  bridge  over  which  to 
trundle  orthographic  truth. 

Necessarily,  violent  hostility  to  new  spellings 
has  always  to  be  reckoned  with.  It  is  by  no 
means  so  intense  or  so  wide-spread  as  it  was 
once.  The  language  employed  is  now  much 
more  guarded.  Men  have  come  to  gain  some 
comprehension  of  the  boundlessness  of  their 
ignorance  of  the  subject,  and  have  learned  in 
consequence  the  wisdom  of  putting  restraint 
upon  expression.  Intemperate  invectives  will, 
indeed,  continue  to  be  heard  for  a  long  while  yet. 
Rarely,  however,  will  they  proceed  from  any 
quarter  where  we  have  a  right  to  expect  real 
intelligence.  Doubtless  belated  survivals  of  the 
17 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

previous  era  of  good  old-fashioned  gentlemanly 
ignorance  will  occasionally  thrust  themselves 
upon  the  attention;  but  these  ebullitions  now 
surprise  and  amuse  rather  than  irritate.  A 
case  in  point  comes  to  my  mind.  In  the  latter 
part  of  1906  I  chanced  to  be  in  London  during 
the  period  when  a  violent  controversy  was  going 
on  between  the  Times  and  the  publishers  as  to 
the  prices  at  which  books  were  to  be  offered 
for  sale.  Every  morning  the  columns  of  the 
great  daily  were  filled  with  letters  on  one  side 
or  the  other  of  the  matter  at  issue.  Naturally 
the  participators  in  this  bibliopolic  tournament 
did  not  invariably  confine  themselves  to  the 
special  subject  under  discussion.  Toward  the 
very  close  of  the  year  a  particularly  precious 
effusion  on  a  side  issue  came  from  one  of  the 
correspondents.^  His  patriotic  soul  had  been 
stirred  to  the  depths  by  the  fact,  as  he  asserted, 
that  English  publishers  had  been  guilty  of  using 
what  he  called  American  spelling  in  their  books. 
They  had  indulged  in  this  heinous  crime  from 
the  ignoble  lust  of  gain.  He  had  declined,  in 
consequence,  to  buy  works  he  needed  and  de- 
sired because  they  were  printed  in  this  fashion. 
"It    is    a    treason    against    our    language    and 

'  Times,  December  27,  1906. 
18 


SPELLING    REFORM 

country,"  he  wrote,  "and  not  merely  an  offence 
against  taste."  Further,  the  writer  of  this 
extraordinary  communication  incidentally  took 
pains  to  inform  us  that  he  had  been  the  winner 
of  a  prize  essay  at  Cambridge  University.  Pre- 
sumably, therefore,  he  had  reached  an  appre- 
ciable degree  of  mental  development  and  was 
in  possession  of  some  intelligence,  however  lit- 
tle his  utterances  might  seem  to  indicate  it. 

EngUsh  scholarship  has  been  too  commonly 
distinct  from  scholarship  in  English;  but  in 
these  latter  days  it  creates  some  little  surprise 
to  find  displayed  publicly  by  a  presumably  ed- 
ucated man  so  gross  a  manifestation  of  all- 
pervading  ignorance  as  is  exemplified  in  the 
communication  just  mentioned.  Undoubtedly 
there  are  still  many  who  think  just  such  thoughts, 
if  it  be  proper  to  dignify  sentiments  of  this  sort 
with  the  name  of  thoughts.  But  it  is  really  too 
late  to  give  them  public  utterance — at  least,  with 
the  writer's  name  attached.  That  should  be 
safely  sheltered  behind  the  bulwark  of  type. 
Better  still,  such  opinions  should  be  reserved 
for  the  circle  of  one's  private  friends,  either 
ignorant  enough  to  sympathize  with  them,  or 
too  much  attached  to  the  speaker  to  expose 
them  to  the  comment  of  a  more  intelligent,  but 
also  more  unfeeling,  world.  Things,  indeed,  can- 
19 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

not  be  said  now  that  could  be  said  with  im- 
punity, and  to  some  extent  with  applause,  fifty 
years  ago — and  even  twenty-five  years  ago  could 
be  said  with  safety.  During  the  last  half  cen- 
tury men  have  been  running  to  and  fro,  and 
knowledge  has  been  increased.  This  is  true  in 
particular  of  the  knowledge  of  English  orthog- 
raphy, of  its  history  and  its  character.  So 
generally,  indeed,  have  special  students,  and  even 
occasionally  highly  educated  men,  become  famil- 
iar with  the  fact  of  the  differences  between  the 
spelling  of  the  present  and  that  of  the  past, 
and  to  a  less  extent,  with  the  changes  that 
have  taken  place  at  various  periods  and  with 
the  causes  that  have  brought  them  about, 
that  it  startles  one  at  first  to  discover  that  there 
are  quarters  into  which  not  even  a  ray  of  this 
light  has  penetrated. 

It  is,  however,  no  difficult  matter  to  point 
out  the  grand  source  of  erroneous  beliefs  of  this 
sort.  It  all  goes  back  to  the  sentiment  of  as- 
sociation. Unhappily  this  sentiment  of  associa- 
tion never  receives  check  or  correction,  because 
we  familiarize  ourselves  with  the  language  of 
the  past  in  the  spelling  of  the  present.  In  the 
matter  of  orthography,  the  dead  author  is  con- 
sidered to  have  no  rights  which  the  living  pub- 
lisher is  bound  to  respect.     His  spelling  is  reg- 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ularly  altered  so  as  to  conform  to  that  of  the 
particular  dictionary  which  has  been  adopted  in 
the  printing-house  as  a  sort  of  official  guide. 
This  is  done  oven  when  the  writer  himself  has 
felt  and  expressed  solicitude  as  to  the  form  in 
which  his  words  should  appear.  There  was  a 
period  when  a  somewhat  similar  treatment  was 
meted  out  to  his  grammar.  The  great  works  of 
the  past  underwent  at  one  time  more  or  less  re- 
vision at  the  hands  of  the  veriest  literary  hacks, 
who  made  changes  in  the  language  in  order  to 
reconcile  it  to  their  notions  of  propriety  of  usage. 
Idioms  had  their  structure  sometimes  modified, 
sometimes  improved  out  of  existence.  Sen- 
tences were  recast  in  order  to  correct  supposed 
errors,  and  bring  them  into  accord  with  the 
rules  laid  down  in  the  latest  school  grammar. 
This  was  particularly  true  of  the  latter  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth.  Hence,  editions  of  the  classic 
authors  of  our  tongue  then  appearing  can  fre- 
quently not  be  consulted  with  confidence  by 
him  to  whom  it  is  of  importance  to  ascertain,  in 
any  given  case,  the  words,  forms,  and  construc- 
tions actually  used  by  the  writer. 

This  condition  of  things  is  no  longer  true  of 
the  grammar  and  expression.  Modern  editors, 
as  a  general  rule,  pay  scrupulous  heed  to  the  exact 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

reproduction  of  the  words  and  constructions  of 
the  original,  whether  these  accord  or  not  with 
their  ideas  of  propriety.  But  as  yet  there  is 
little  of  this  sensitiveness  of  feeling  about  the 
orthography.  It  may  be  conceded  that  the 
matter  is  not  in  itself  so  important  for  a  certain 
class  of  readers.  The  expression,  after  all,  is 
the  vital  concern.  Accordingly,  in  a  work  de- 
signed for  the  use  of  the  great  body  of  men,  it 
may  not  be  desirable  to  reproduce  peculiarities 
of  orthography  so  numerous  and  so  variant  from 
present  use  as  to  interfere  with  ease  of  reading, 
or  distract  attention  from  the  thought  to  the 
form  of  the  words  in  which  the  thought  is 
clothed.  While,  therefore,  the  reproduction  of 
the  exact  spelling  of  a  classic  work  is  essential 
to  the  educated  man  who  desires  to  be  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  the  speech,  it  is  of 
but  subsidiary  importance  to  perhaps  a  ma- 
jority of  ordinary  readers.  Even  an  author  so 
late  as  Shakespeare  would  hardly  have  been  the 
popular  writer  he  is  had  the  mass  of  men  been 
compelled  to  read  him  in  the  spelling  in  which 
his  works  originally  appeared.  Something  has 
undoubtedly  been  lost  by  conforming  his  orthog- 
raphy to  that  of  the  present  time,  but  doubt- 
less much  more  has  been  gained  in  the  wider 
reading  his  works  have  received  in  consequence. 

22 


SPELLING    REFORM 

Considerations  of  this  sort  do  not  apply  to 
works  designed  strictly  for  the  specialist  and  the 
highly  educated.  But  even  in  the  case  of  the 
great  mass  of  men  they  do  not  apply  to  works 
which  have  been  published  since  English  or- 
thography fell  under  the  sway  of  the  printing- 
house.  The  variations  from  the  existing  forms 
are  indeed  increasingly  numerous  the  farther 
we  go  back;  but  even  where  they  most  prevail 
they  are  not  really  large  in  number  or  serious  in 
character.  Certainly  they  would  not  present 
to  an  intelligent  human  being  the  slightest 
obstacle  to  ease  of  reading  or  of  comprehen- 
sion. Hence,  we  have  a  right  to  demand  that 
the  few  variations  which  exist  should  be  repro- 
duced both  in  their  integrity  and  their  entirety; 
that  an  edition  of  an  author  belonging  to  these 
later  periods  should  represent  his  spelling  as 
well  as  his  grammar.  In  the  vast  majority  of 
instances — excluding  avowed  reprints — this  is 
not  now  the  case.  In  the  matter  of  orthography, 
rarely  do  editors  or  ptiblishers  have  any  con- 
science. The  works  of  the  past,  even  of  the 
immediate  past,  are  presented  to  us  not  in 
the  spelling  of  the  past,  but  in  that  of  the 
present. 

Hence,  there  is  no  occasion  for  surprise  that 
such  pitiful  exhibitions  of  ignorance  are  so 
3  23 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

constantly  displayed  by  men  from  whom  we 
should  naturally  expect  better  things.  The 
large  majority  of  even  cultivated  readers  do  not 
see  the  words  used  by  any  great  author  of  the 
past  in  the  way  in  which  he  himself  spelled 
them.  They  see  them  only  as  the  modern 
printer  chooses  to  spell  them  for  him.  It  is, 
therefore,  not  surprising  that  the  existing  or- 
thography should  come  to  seem  to  such  men  not 
the  comparatively  late  creation  it  is,  but  as 
something  which  has  about  it  all  the  flavor  of 
antiquity.  As  an  inevitable  result,  there  has 
been  further  imparted  to  it  the  odor  of  sanctity. 
Ignorance  is  recognized  everywhere  as  a  mother 
of  devotion.  Nowhere  has  there  been  a  more 
striking  manifestation  of  this  truth  than  in 
the  case  of  our  spelling.  The  adoring  w^orship 
of  it  seems  to  be  more  widely  diffused  in  Eng- 
land than  in  America — at  least,  it  is  there 
more  shameless  in  the  exhibition  of  its  lack  of 
knowledge,  though  that  is  saying  a  good  deal. 
We  have  all  of  late  been  made  familiar  with  the 
somewhat  unfortunate  remark  of  an  English 
writer,  that  the  spelling  of  Shakespeare  was 
good  enough  for  him.  Now  an  assertion  of  this 
sort  would  be  worthless  as  an  argument,  even 
were  it  based  upon  a  foundation  of  ascertained 
fact.  We  do  not  deprive  ourselves  of  existing 
24 


SPELLING    REFORM 

facilities  of  any  sort,  because  they  were  not  only 
unused,  but  were  unheard  of  in  the  time  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  No  one  now  feels  himself  under  the 
necessity  of  refraining  from  making  a  rapid  trip 
to  Stratford  by  rail  because  Shakespeare  was 
compelled  to  journey  thither  slowly  and  labor- 
iously over  the  wretchedest  of  roads. 

But  in  this  instance  an  argument,  worthless 
in  itself,  is  made  even  more  worthless,  if  possible, 
because  the  facts  upon  which  it  is  presumed  to 
be  founded  do  not  exist.  Shakespeare  flourished 
in  a  period  when  no  eager  desire  existed  for  the 
maintenance  of  any  strict  orthographi  c  monopoly. 
Within  certain  well-defined  limits  every  one 
spelled  pretty  much  as  he  pleased.  Hence,  the 
same  word  cannot  infrequently  be  found  in  his 
writings,  and  in  those  of  his  contemporaries, 
with  marked  diversities  of  form.  His  usage, 
furthermore,  differed  in  some  cases  entirely 
from  any  known  to  the  modern  world.  But  if 
his  printed  works  fairly  represent  his  practice, 
he  evinced  in  many  instances  a  perverse  pref- 
erence for  what  the  semi-educated  call  American 
spelling.  Let  us  test  the  truth  of  this  last 
assertion  by  examining  the  attitude  he  assumed 
in  a  matter  about  which  an  orthographic  con- 
troversy has  been  raging  for  centuries.  This  is 
the  case  of  certain  words  which,  according  to 

25 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

one  method  of  spelling,  end  in  er,  according  to 
the  other,  in  re. 

As  regards  orthography,  these  words  natural- 
ly divide  themselves  into  two  classes.  In  the 
first  of  these  the  termination  is  preceded  by  c. 
When  this  is  the  case  the  words  fall  under  the 
influence  of  a  general  principle  regulating  pro- 
nunciation— so  far  as  general  principles  can  be 
said  to  regulate  anything  in  English.  Accord- 
ing to  it,  c  before  the  vowel  e  assumes  the 
sound  of  5.  The  words  of  this  particular  class 
which  Shakespeare  uses  are  acre,  lucre,  and 
massacre.  Were  they  made  to  end  in  er,  they 
would  have  to  come  into  conflict  with  the  rule 
just  mentioned.  As  a  result  they  would  mis- 
lead, as  to  their  proper  pronunciation,  those  who 
saw  them  for  the  first  time.  Under  present  con- 
ditions, they  therefore  cannot  well  undergo  any 
change.  The  only  way  out  of  the  difficulty 
would  be  to  substitute  k  for  c.  Such  a  course 
we  have  taken,  for  instance,  in  the  case  of  the 
word  joke.  This  comes  from  the  Latin  joc-us 
with  the  same  meaning.  At  its  first  intro- 
duction into  the  speech,  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  spelled  joque 
or  joe.  It  finally  gave  up  the  c  of  the  original 
and  substituted  for  it  k.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  the  adjective  jocose,  we  retain  the  letter  of 
26 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  primitive  which  we  have  discarded  in  the 
noun. 

This  state  of  things  is  modern,  because  in 
Anglo-Saxon  c  had  always  the  sound  of  k. 
Consequently,  in  (£cer,  the  original  of  our  word 
acre,  there  was  neither  difficulty  nor  confusion 
created  by  the  employment  of  the  letter.  All 
this,  hov/ever,  was  changed  by  the  Norman 
Conquest.  The  pronunciation  of  c  was  in  con- 
sequence affected,  as  it  still  is,  by  a  following  e. 
The  result  was  that  for  a  long  time  k  was  largely 
substituted  in  this  particular  word  for  the 
original  letter.  But  in  the  fourteenth  century 
the  present  method  of  spelling  it  came  into 
fashion.  It  has  remained  in  fashion  ever  since. 
The  earlier  form  maintained  itself  for  a  while  as 
of  equal  authority.  It,  indeed,  died  out  slowly 
and  reluctantly;  but  it  died  at  last.  In  the 
collected  edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  which 
appeared  in  1623,  acre  was  practically  the 
only  recognized  spelling.  The  word  occurs  in 
this  work  just  seven  times.  In  one  instance 
only  does  the  older  form  crop  up.  When  Ham- 
let tells  Laertes,  "  Let  them  throw  millions  of 
acres  on  us,"  the  word  is  spelled  akcrs}  In  a 
similar  way  Bacon  in  his  Advancement  of  Learn- 

'  Act  V,  scene  i,  line  269. 
27 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

ing  uses  lukar  for  lucre.  But  examples  of  prac- 
tices such  as  these  are  exceptional. 

Consideration  of  a  like  sort  does  not,  however, 
apply  to  the  words  of  the  second  class  to  be  con- 
sidered. There  are  several  of  these  now  found 
with  the  ending  er  or  re  which  do  not  appear 
in  Shakespeare's  writings.  Conspicuous  among 
those  not  used  by  him  are  fibre  or  fiber,  miter  or 
mitre,  niter  or  nitre,  sabre  or  saber,  specter  or 
spectre.  But  the  words  of  this  second  class 
which  actually  occur  are  more  numerous  than 
those  of  the  first  class.  The  most  common 
ones  employed  by  him,  about  which  variation 
of  usage  now  prevails,  are  center  or  centre, 
luster  or  lustre,  tneager  or  meagre,  meter  or 
metre,  scepter  or  sceptre,  sepulcher  or  sepulchre, 
theater  or  theatre.  It  becomes  a  matter,  there- 
fore, of  some  interest  to  discover  which  of  these 
forms  must  be  chosen  by  the  writer  who  pro- 
fesses that  Shakespeare's  spelling  is  good  enough 
for  him.  The  evidence  afforded  by  the  print- 
ed page — in  this  case  the  only  evidence  that  can 
be  secured — is  accordingly  given  in  the  follow- 
ing paragraph. 

Take  the  spelling  of  the  words  just  mentioned 
as  it  is  found  in  the  folio  of  1623.  Center  ap- 
pears precisely  twelve  times  in  that  volume.  It 
is  never  spelled  with  re.  In  ten  instances  it  has 
28 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  termination  er.  Once  the  form  centry  is 
found,  and  once  centure.  Meager  occurs  five 
times.  In  every  instance  it  ends  in  er.  This 
similar  statement  may  be  made  of  meter,  which 
is  used  but  twice.  In  both  these  cases  it  has  the 
termination  er.  Scepter  is  a  word  found  far 
more  frequently.  It  appears  just  thirty-five 
times.*  Not  once  does  it  have  the  ending  re; 
it  is  invariably  er.  The  case  is  not  essentially 
different  with  sepulcher.  Thirteen  times  it  oc- 
curs; eleven  times  with  the  termination  er, 
twice  with  the  termination  re."^  About  the 
theater  Shakespeare  may  be  supposed  to  have 
had  some  knowledge.  The  word  itself  appears 
but  six  times  in  his  plays.  But  even  in  these 
few  instances  he  seems  to  have  felt  a  perverse 
preference  for  the  spelling  In  er  over  that  in 
re.  The  former  occurs  just  five  times,  the 
latter  but  once.  The  only  consolation  left  for 
him  who  combines  devotion  to  Shakespeare 
with  devotion  to  the  ending  in  re  is  found  in 
the   word   spelled   lustre  or  luster.     It   appears 

'  Mrs.  Cowden  Clarke's  Concordance  gives  but  thirty- 
four.  She  omits  the  instance  of  its  occurrence  which 
is  found  in  I  Henry  IV.,  act  ii,  scene  4. 

^  The  form  sepulchre  is  found  in  the  folio  of  1623, 
in  Richard  II.,  act  i,  scene  3,  and  in  III  Henry  VI., 
act  i,  scene  4. 

29 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

exactly  thirteen  times.     Seven  times  it  is  spelled 
the  former  way,  six  times  the  latter. 

Spellings  of  this  sort,  it  may  be  added,  are 
far  from  being  limited  to  Shakespeare's  age. 
They  were  followed  by  many  writers  much  later. 
Modern  editions,  to  which  we  are  accustomed, 
do  more,  as  already  intimated,  than  hide  the  fact 
from  our  eyes.  They  actually  prevent,  for  most 
of  us,  the  possibility  of  discovering  it.  Hence, 
the  prevalent  lack  of  intelligence,  with  its  con- 
sequent hardiness  of  assertion,  not  unfrequently 
accompanied  with  the  feeling  of  distress  and 
repulsion  at  any  proposal  for  change.  He  whose 
heart  is  affected  with  sadness  at  the  sight  of  the 
spelling  theater  for  theatre  or  center  for  centre, 
and  whose  prophetic  soul  foresees  disaster  as 
the  result  of  the  general  adoption  of  such  forms, 
would  find  his  grief  alleviated  and  his  fears  dis- 
pelled if  he  could  only  extend  his  knowledge 
sufficiently  to  familiarize  himself  with  the  real 
practice  of  the  past,  instead  of  getting  his  notions 
about  it  from  the  falsifications  of  the  present. 
Examine,  for  instance,  in  regard  to  the  very 
usage  under  discussion,  the  first  edition  of  Ad- 
dison's Remarks  on  Italy.  This  work  was 
brought  out  in  1705  by  Tonson,  the  most  noted 
publisher  of  the  time.  The  same  variation 
which    prevailed    earlier    in    the    use    of    these 

30 


SPELLING    REFORM 

terminations  still  continued.  But  there  con- 
tinued also  a  distinct  preference  for  er  over  re. 
Fiber,  salt-peter,  and  scepter  are  found  as  here 
printed.  Theater  occurs  seven  times,  six  times 
as  theater,  and  once — in  poetry —  as  theatre. 
Amphitheater  is  used  ten  times  in  all.  Once 
its  plural  is  spelled  amphitheatres;  in  the  other 
nine  instances  it  has  the  ending  in  er}  On  the 
other  hand,  meager  and  niter,  both  of  which  are 
used  once,  and  sepulcher,  which  appears  five 
times,  have  the  termination  re.  Or,  take 
Gulliver's  Travels,  which  came  out  more  than 
a  score  of  years  later.  The  first  edition  of 
the  work  was  published  in  1726  in  two  volumes. 
In  it  center  is  found  just  seven  times.  In 
every  instance  it  is  spelled  with  the  ending 
er,  not  once  in  re.  Meager,  it  may  be  added, 
occurs  twice,  and  in  both  cases  as  here  spelled.^ 
But  here  again,  as  in  most  other  works,  modern 
reprints  falsify  the  record. 

'Addison's  Retnarks  on  Italy,  etc.,  ed  of  1705,  fiber, 
p.  212;  salt-peter,  p.  239;  scepter,  pp.  ig,  124;  theater, 
pp.  102,  155,  156,  433  (twice),  521;  theatre,  p.  50; 
amphitheater,  pp.  57  (twice),  127,  176,  219,  224,  302, 
34.S'   379;     amphitheatres,  p.   225. 

^  Travels  into  Several  Remote  Nations  of  the  World, 
by  Captain  Lemuel  Gulliver,  London,  2  vols.,  1726. 
Center  appears  in  vol.  i,  pp.  60.  67;  vol.  ii,  pp.  36 
(twice),  37,  43  (twice);  twice  meager  appears  in  vol.  ii, 
pp.  63,  105. 

31 


ENGLISH    SPELLING     AND 

In  these  instances  it  is  easy  enough  to  exag- 
gerate the  importance  of  the  evidence  furnished 
on  this  point;  at  least,  it  is  so  in  the  case  of 
the  Elizabethans.  In  any  fair  discussion  of 
orthography,  two  things  are  to  be  kept  in  view. 
One  is  to  ascertain  the  exact  facts;  the  other  is 
not  to  get  from  them  erroneous  impressions. 
Let  us  go  back,  for  instance,  to  Shakespeare  and 
his  spelling  of  words  with  the  endings  er  or  re. 
It  is  not  in  the  least  desirable  to  attribute  to 
him  feelings  which  he  never  had,  nor  even 
dreamed  of  having.  Like  his  contemporaries,  he 
found  two  forms  of  these  words  in  use.  Like 
them,  he  attached  no  particular  sanctity  to 
either.  He  unquestionably  felt  himself  at 
liberty  to  use  both.  All,  therefore,  that  one 
can  positively  say  in  the  case  of  these  words 
is  that  if  Shakespeare  had  any  preference,  it 
was  manifestly  in  favor  of  the  termination 
in  er. 

If  it  be  urged  that  the  plays  published  after 
his  death  do  not  represent  either  his  opinion  or 
his  practice,  it  is  fair  to  say  in  reply  that  a 
like  condition  of  things  is  revealed  in  the  minor 
poems.  All  of  these  appeared  in  his  lifetime. 
Over  the  printing  of  some  of  them  he  may  have 
had  no  oversight.  For  the  spelling  of  the 
words  found  in  these  he  cannot,  therefore,  be 
32 


SPELLING    REFORM 

held  directly  responsible.  Still,  the  two  most 
important  of  them — Venus  and  Adonis  and  The 
Rape  of  Lucrece — must,  in  going  through  the 
press,  have  passed  under  his  own  eye.  In  con- 
sequence, the  spelling  employed  could  not  have 
failed  to  receive  his  tacit  sanction  at  least, 
if  even,  what  is  more  probable,  he  was  not  him- 
self primarily  responsible  for  it.  Yet  in  these 
very  two  poems  scepter  *  and  sepulcher  ^  are 
found  so  spelled  in  the  original  editions.  A  like 
statement  may  be  made  of  this  last  word  in  the 
single  instance  in  which  it  occurs  in  the 
Sonnets."^  Further,  the  same  thing  may  be  said 
about  his  use  of  center^  and  meter. ^  Each  ap- 
pears but  once,  but  it  appears  as  just  given. 
On  the  other  hand  meager,  which  is  found  five 
times  in  this  form  in  the  plays,  has  the  spelling 
meagre^  in  its  solitary  occurrence  in  the  poems. 
For  neither  one  of  these  forms  is  Shakespeare 
likely  to  have  felt  any  decided  preference.  Still, 
he  could  not  have  failed  to  see  that  there  was  no 
more  reason  for  the  spelling  meagre  instead  of 
meager  than  there  was  for  eagre  in  place  of 
eager,  or,  to  adopt  the  more  common  earlier 
orthography,  egre. 

^  The  Rape  of  Lucrece,  \- 21"].    *  Sonnets,  cxlvi. 

^  Venus  and  Adonis,  \.  622.      ^Sonnets,  xvii. 

'  Sonnets,   Ixviii.  "  Venus  and  Adonis,  L  93 1. 

33 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Besides  these  words  there  were  two  others 
of  the  class  considered,  about  which  variation  of 
usage  existed  or  exists.  Because  of  their  single 
occurrence  in  his  writing,  their  spelling  can  be 
regarded  of  importance  only  as  indicating  ten- 
dency. Othello,  in  his  account  of  his  life,  speaks 
of  "antres  vast  and  deserts  idle,"  as  it  is  found 
in  all  modern  editions.  But  Shakespeare  has 
no  such  form  as  antres.  In  the  first  folio  it  is 
antars;  in  the  quarto  of  1622  it  is  antrees,  in- 
dicating a  difference  of  pronunciation.  The 
word  itself  is  rare  at  any  period.  Its  later  use, 
so  far  as  it  has  been  used  at  all,  is  due  to  its 
appearance  in  a  favorite  play  of  the  great 
dramatist.  No  one  among  his  contemporaries 
seems,  so  far  as  is  now  known,  to  have  felt  it 
desirable  or  incumbent  to  resort  to  its  employ- 
ment; though  later  investigations  may  cause  it 
to  turn  up  at  any  time.  But  the  form  in  which 
we  know  it  is  not  due  to  Shakespeare  himself,  but 
to  his  editors.  There  seems  little  reason  for 
denying  him  the  privilege  of  spelling  the  word 
in  his  own  way.  There  is  still  another  term, 
now  not  uncommon,  which  is  found  but  once 
in  his  writings.  But  the  villainous  stuff  which 
Henry  IV. 's  ambassador  told  Hotspur  was 
digged  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  to  destroy 
brave  men,  was  not  salt  -  petre,  as  modern 
34 


SPELLING    REFORM 

editions   have   it,  but   salt  -  peter    in   the   orig- 
inal.* 

These  are  all  the  disputed  words  of  this  class 
which  are  found  in  the  poems  of  Shakespeare  as 
well  as  in  his  plays,  as  also  the  number  of  times 
of  their  occurrence.  Facts  of  this  sort  are 
familiar,  at  least  in  a  general  way,  to  all  special 
students  of  our  speech.  But  even  from  the 
highly  educated  they  are  hidden  more  or  less, 
and  in  many  cases  hidden  altogether.  These 
see  ordinarily  nothing  but  modern  editions 
of  the  greatest  writers;  and  in  modern  edi- 
tions modern  orthography  is  substituted  for 
the  orthography  which  the  authors  of  the  past 
favored,  or  at  least  endured.  The  result  is 
that  the  feeling  of  association  which  attaches 
to  every  word  a  particular  form  is  never  sub- 
jected to  the  counteracting  influence  which 
would  spring  from  coming  even  into  occasional 
contact  with  the  earlier  usage.  The  strength 
of  this  feeling  has  in  consequence  become 
abnormal.  From  it  has  further  developed 
the  singular  belief  of  the  orthographically  un- 
educated that  the  present  spelling  is  some- 
how bound  up  with  the  purity  of  the  language, 
if  not  with  its  continued  existence. 

*  I  Henry  IV.,  act  i.,  scene  3. 
35 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

It  is  because  I  look  upon  this  sentiment  of 
association  as  the  main  bulwark  of  our  present 
orthography  that  I  have  always  taken  the 
ground  that  it  is  only  through  a  rising  genera- 
tion that  any  thorough-going  reform  can  ever 
be  accomplished.  It  is  asking  too  much  of 
human  nature  to  expect  a  generation  already 
risen  to  go  a  second  time  through  the  fiery 
ordeal  of  learning  to  spell.  Individuals  be- 
longing to  it  will  adopt  proposed  changes, 
especially  those  in  whom  conviction  is  rein- 
forced by  the  energy  of  youth  or  of  personal 
character.  Of  these  there  will  be  a  regularly 
increasing  number  with  the  enlightenment  which 
is  sure  to  follow  discussion  of  the  subject.  But 
the  action  of  the  great  mass  of  even  highly 
educated  men  will  not  be  affected.  This  state 
of  things  would  probably  be  true  of  the  spell- 
ing of  any  language;  but  in  one  so  defiant  of 
all  law  as  our  own,  the  aversion  to  change 
would  increase  in  proportion  to  the  lawlessness. 
We  are  not  disposed  to  give  up  what  with  so 
much  toil  we  have  acquired.  Furthermore, 
there  comes  to  be  in  the  minds  of  many  a  certain 
fondness  for  the  existing  orthography  because 
of  its  very  irrationality,  of  its  constant  unfit- 
ness to  fulfil  its  professed  aim  of  representing 
pronunciation.  Its  uncouthness  inspires  them 
36 


SPELLING    REFORM 

with  the  same  sort  of  devotion  with  which  the 
lower  order  of  savage  tribes  regard  their  gods. 
The  ugUer  they  are,  the  more  fervently  they  are 
adored. 

In  the  case  of  a  rising  generation  there  are  no 
such  feelings  to  be  encountered.  The  soil  is 
virgin.  No  prejudices  are  to  be  overcome,  no 
sentiments  to  be  shocked,  no  customs  to  be 
changed.  The  reasoning  powers  have  not  been 
so  blunted  by  association  that  the  mind  looks 
with  favor  upon  what  is  defiant  of  reason. 
Furthermore,  about  the  changed  and  correct 
forms  would  speedily  gather  the  same  sentiment 
which  has  caused  the  previous  forms  to  be 
cherished  by  their  elders.  The  younger  gen- 
eration will  in  time  do  more  than  look  upon  the 
new  spellings  as  the  only  conceivably  rational 
ones.  They  will  wonder  by  what  perversity 
their  fathers  came  to  tolerate  the  old  ones  in  de- 
fiance of  reason.  If  a  child  has  been  accus- 
tomed from  his  earliest  years  to  use  exclusively 
the  forms  vext  and  mixt,  the  spellings  vexed  and 
mixed  will  not  only  seem  offensive  to  him  when 
he  becomes  a  man,  but  it  will  be  difficult  for 
him  to  comprehend  the  precise  nature  of  the 
irrationality  which  could  ever  have  insisted 
upon  it  as  a  virtue  that  the  combination  ed 
should  have  the  sound  of  t. 
37 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

A  risen  generation,  accordingly,  cannot  rea- 
sonably be  expected  to  adopt  a  new  spelling. 
The  most  that  can  be  asked  of  it  is  that  it  shall 
not  put  itself  in  active  opposition,  that  it  shall 
let  the  task  of  improving  our  present  barbarous 
orthography  go  on  unimpeded.  This,  however, 
is  the  very  last  thing  it  is  inclined  to  do.  The 
fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes;  they  have  no 
intention  of  keeping  their  children's  children's 
teeth  from  being  set  on  edge.  Yet  there  is  plain- 
ly to  be  recognized  now  the  existence  of  a 
steadily  increasing  number  of  persons  who  are 
disposed  to  consider  this  whole  question  care- 
fully. In  the  case  of  such  men — upon  whose 
co-operation  the  success  of  any  movement  must 
ultimately  depend — it  is  all-essential  that  the 
changes  proposed  should  recommend  themselves 
by  their  manifest  propriety  or  by  the  probability 
of  their  general  acceptance.  They  may  be  un- 
willing to  take  the  trouble  to  use  these  new  forms 
in  their  own  practice,  even  if  convinced  of  their 
desirableness;  but  they  will  be  ready  to  cast 
their  influence  in  favor  of  their  adoption  by  the 
members  of  that  rising  generation  to  whom  the 
spelling  of  certain  words  in  certain  ways  has 
not  yet  become  almost  a  second  nature. 

The  permanent  success  of  any  spelling  reform, 
according  to  this  view,  depends  upon  its  adop- 
38 


SPELLING    REFORM 

tion  by  a  rising  generation.  To  have  it  so 
adopted,  it  must  recommend  itself  to  the  risen 
generation  as  being  both  desirable  and  feasible. 
Unreasoning  ignorance,  intrenched  behind  a 
rampart  of  prejudice,  can  be  ignored.  Not  so 
the  honest  ignorance  of  those  whose  training 
naturally  inclines  them  to  favor  what  has  been 
long  received,  but  who  are  not  averse  to  consider 
the  question  in  dispute  fully  and  fairly.  In  any 
case  the  changes  proposed,  in  order  to  succeed, 
must  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance ;  for  they 
have  to  encounter  that  peculiarly  formidable 
of  hostile  forces  —  the  unintelligent  opposition 
of  the  intelligent.  The  altered  forms  recom- 
mended for  adoption  must,  therefore,  have  at 
the  outset  some  support  either  in  present  or  past 
usage,  or  they  must  be  in  accord  with  the  opera- 
tion of  some  law  modifying  orthography,  which 
has  always  been  steadily,  even  if  imperceptibly, 
at  work  in  the  language. 

It  is  because  it  does  not  conform  to  either  of 
these  principles  that,  had  I  had  anything  to  say 
about  it,  I  should  have  objected  to  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  spelling  thru.  My  reasons  for 
taking  such  ground  would  have  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  abstract  propriety  or  impropriety 
of  the  new  form.  Nor  could  exception  be  taken 
to  it  on  the  score  of  derivation.  The  original 
39 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

word,  indeed,  from  which  it  came  was  tlmrJi. 
Later  this  appeared  at  times  as  thruh.  No  fault 
could,  therefore,  be  found  with  the  alteration 
beyond  the  dropping  of  the  sign  of  the  no  longer 
pronounced  guttural.  It  is  not  principle, 
therefore,  that  would  have  come  into  the 
consideration  of  it,  but  expedienc\^  I  should 
have  objected  to  it  solely  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  a  violent  break  with  the  literary  past. 
Therefore,  instead  of  following  the  line  of  least 
resistance,  it  would  follow  the  line  of  greatest. 
It  would  be  sure,  in  consequence,  to  excite  bitter 
hostility  and  to  repel  support  from  the  other 
recommendations  made.  Its  adoption  into  the 
list  would,  therefore,  not  have  seemed  to  me 
good  policy.  This  is  a  view  of  the  matter  en- 
tirely independent  of  my  personal  indisposition 
to  favor  vowel  changes  in  the  spelling  until  a 
settled  plan  for  the  representation  of  the  vowel 
sounds  has  been  agreed  upon  and  accepted. 
Yet  it  is  fair  to  add  that  in  consequence  of  the 
frequency  with  which  the  new  form  has  been 
made  the  subject  of  attack,  the  sense  of  strange- 
ness and  the  resultant  hostiHty  with  which  it 
was  first  greeted  have  now  largely  worn  away. 
It  has  been  asserted  that  hostility  to  the  very 
idea  of  reforming  the  spelling  has  largely  its 
source  in  the  erroneous  beliefs,  with  the  prej- 
40 


SPELLING    REFORM 

udices  engendered  of  them,  that  have  come  to 
prevail  in  conseqiience  of  tampering  with  the 
orthography  found  in  the  works  of  the  past,  and 
reproducing  them  in  the  orthography  of  the 
present.  In  time,  and  with  effort,  the  widely 
diffused  ignorance  so  generated  can  be  trusted  to 
disappear.  But  even  when  this  obstacle  is  re- 
moved, another  of  the  same  general  nature  still 
remains.  It  is,  perhaps,  full  as  formidable. 
There  is  no  reference  here  to  the  difficulty  in- 
herent in  the  very  character  of  our  spelling — 
a  difficulty  that  is  far  the  most  serious  of 
all.  This  is,  however,  a  subject  which  will  come 
up  for  consideration  by  itself.  The  obstacle 
here  in  mind  lies  in  the  very  nature  of  the  men  of 
our  race.  It  is  an  obstruction  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  them;  only  in  them  it  is  more  pronounced 
than  in  the  case  of  other  nations  with  other 
tongues.  The  English-speaking  people,  in  their 
attempts  at  carrying  out  any  reform,  are  little 
inclined  to  act  logically.  They  do  not  place 
clearly  before  themselves  the  exact  nature  of 
the  evil  they  propose  to  attack,  and  then  set  out 
to  extirpate  it  root  and  branch,  according  to 
certain  well-defined  principles.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  work  by  the  rule  of  tliumb.  They 
find  a  flaw  here,  a  ilcfect  there.  They  then 
proceed  to  remedy  it  as  best  they  can  without 
41 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

disturbing  and  disarranging  the  rest  of  the 
structure.  Accordingly,  no  symmetry  is  dis- 
played in  the  character  of  the  alteration  made 
and  no  perfection  in  the  result. 

Still,  about  this  method  there  are  manifest 
advantages.  Whatever  changes  are  effected  are 
efifected  with  the  least  possible  friction,  and 
after  the  least  possible  struggle.  They  are 
brought  about  so  gradually  that  the  minds  of 
men  are  comparatively  little  disturbed  by  the 
break  with  the  past  which  has  been  made. 
There  still  remain  relics  of  its  absurdities  with 
which  they  can  console  themselves  for  what  they 
have  lost.  Consequently,  the  alterations,  how- 
ever much  an  object  of  dislike,  cause  nothing  of 
that  intense  hostility  which  attends  any  scien- 
tific and,  therefore,  sweeping  reform. 

In  this  respect  our  race  stands  in  sharpest 
contrast  with  that  foreign  one  with  which  its 
connections  have  been  closest — which  has  often 
been  its  enemy  and  occasionally  its  ally.  The 
French  mind,  unlike  the  English,  is  by  nature 
severe  and  logical.  It  cares  little  for  precedent. 
It  fixes  its  eyes  upon  principle.  It  is  disposed 
to  follow  any  reform  it  accepts  to  its  remotest 
conclusion.  It  drops  without  hesitation  long- 
cherished  excrescences,  brings  order  out  of 
chaos,  even  if  in  so  doing  it  is  forced  to  disregard 
42 


SPELLING    REFORM 

traditions  and  override  cherished  sentiments. 
We  can  see  the  attitude  of  the  French  mind 
as  contrasted  with  that  of  the  EngHsh  best 
illustrated  in  comparatively  recent  French  his- 
tory. The  Revolution  was  a  period  of  storm 
and  stress.  Things  were  then  attempted  which 
would  hardly  have  been  thought  of,  far  less 
tried,  at  any  ordinary  period.  But  the  point 
here  is  that  such  things  could  never  have  been 
carried  out  by  the  men  of  the  English  race  at 
the  most  extraordinary  period.  It  is  not  merely 
that  they  would  not  have  been  done;  they 
would  not  have  been  contemplated.  To 
unify  France,  for  illustration,  it  was  essential, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  revolutionists,  that  the  an- 
cient provinces  should  be  obliterated,  so  far  as 
their  size  would  permit  their  entire  efifacement. 
They  therefore  cut  up  the  land  into  depart- 
ments. In  these  the  old  boundaries  were  dis- 
regarded. Sections  of  different  provinces  were 
brought  into  political  union  wherever  practi- 
cable. New  affiliations  were  to  take  the  place 
of  the  old.  The  idea  of  federation  was  to  be  de- 
stroyed. The  provinces  were  to  be  made  to 
disappear  as  living  entities  from  the  minds  of 
men.  In  place  of  them  the  department,  a 
purely  artificial  creation,  was  to  be  constantly 
before  their  eyes.  Men  were  no  longer  to  be 
43 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Normans  or  Bretons  or  Gascons  or  Burgund- 
ians;  they  were  to  be  simply  Frenchmen,  In 
diverting  the  thought  of  the  people  from  the 
provinces  to  the  whole  country,  the  reformers 
had  no  hesitation  in  uprooting  the  traditions 
and  common  associations  which  the  inhabitants 
of  these  provinces  had  inherited  from  the  past, 
and  in  running  counter  to  sentiments  which  had 
been  the  outgrowth  of  centuries. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  in  the  time  of  most  vio- 
lent revolution,  no  idea  of  this  sort  would  occur 
to  the  men  of  the  English-vSpeaking  races.  Even 
in  the  case  of  the  counties  of  Great  Britain, 
where  the  tie  is  by  no  means  strong,  it  can  hard- 
ly be  conceived  as  undergoing  consideration. 
But  contemplate  the  reception  that  would  be 
given  to  the  project  of  breaking  up  the  United 
States  into  a  series  of  departments,  or  provinces, 
in  which  the  present  boundaries  should  be 
obliterated,  and  in  which  all  the  members  should 
have,  as  far  as  possible,  the  same  size  or  the 
same  population!  Now  there  would  be  with  us 
no  advantage  worth  mentioning  in  any  such 
action.  But  suppose  there  would  arise  from  it 
advantages  which  every  one  would  admit  to 
be  of  the  most  immense  and  far-reaching  im- 
portance? Even  in  that  case,  imagine  the  favor 
any  such  proposition  would  meet  with,  and  the 
44 


SPELLING    REFORM 

chances  there  would  be  for  its  adoption.  Yet 
this  is  something  which  revolutionary  France 
not  only  set  out  to  accomplish,  but  actually  did 
accomplish.  She  accomplished  it,  too,  not  in 
the  case  of  political  entities  which,  as  with  us, 
had  often  only  a  few  years  of  existence,  and  at 
best  but  two  or  three  hundred,  but  in  the  case 
of  provinces  whose  history  Avent  back  to  the 
very  beginnings  of  modern  Europe.  She  over- 
rode all  local  ties,  all  provincial  prejudices,  in  her 
resolution  that  her  inhabitants  should  no  longer 
be  citizens  of  Provence  or  Normandy  or  Brittany, 
but  citizens  only  of  France. 

Exactly  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  an- 
other experiment  then  made.  It  is  practically 
inconceivable  to  imagine  the  men  of  our  race, 
on  their  own  initiative,  devising  and  setting  up 
such  a  violent  alteration  of  all  existing  practices 
as  was  involved  in  the  introduction,  in  1799,  of 
the  metrical  system  of  weights  and  measures. 
There  is  no  need  of  discussing  here  its  abstract 
superiority  or  inferiority.  The  only  point  to 
be  made  prominent  is  that  the  English  could 
not,  or  at  least  would  not,  have  gone  at  the 
problem  that  way.  Even  if  they  had  solved  it  to 
their  satisfaction,  they  would  not  have  thought 
of  at  once  proceeding  to  put  into  practice  tlie 
conclusions  reached.  The  French  mind,  clear 
45 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

and  logical,  saw,  as  it  believed,  the  advantage  of 
a  uniform  system  of  weights  and  measures. 
One  method,  for  illustration,  of  weight  for  gold 
and  silver,  another  for  drugs  and  chemicals, 
another  for  ordinary  objects,  struck  them  as 
having  no  justification  in  reason.  They  took 
advantage  of  a  period  when  all  ancient  beliefs 
and  customs  were  on  trial  for  their  life  to  re- 
duce these  varying  practices  to  uniformity. 
They  created  a  commission  of  men  to  study  the 
subject.  To  them  they  intrusted  the  con- 
sideration of  it,  and  instructed  them  to  report 
the  measures  that  ought  to  be  taken.  Once 
satisfied  that  their  recomniendations  were 
worthy  of  adoption,  they  did  not,  as  would  have 
been  done  with  us,  pigeon-hole  the  report  con- 
taining them.  Instead,  they  enacted  them  into 
law  and  imposed  them  upon  the  whole  country, 
whether  men  were  willing  to  accept  them  or 
averse. 

This  is  the  way  the  French  mind  works,  or, 
rather,  is  disposed  to  work;  for  the  things  accom- 
plished then  could  not  have  been  accomplished 
so  suddenly,  if  even  at  all,  in  any  ordinary 
period.  But  the  English  mind  does  not  act  in 
that  way.  Just  as  it  is  in  the  French  blood  to 
reduce  everything  to  a  system  of  orderly  com- 
pleteness, no  matter  what  inconveniences  may 
46 


SPELLING    REFORM 

attend  the  process,  so  it  is  in  our  blood  to  love  an 
anomaly  for  its  own  sake,  frequently  to  extol 
it  as  something  desirable  in  itself.  This  dif- 
ference of  mental  attitude  between  the  two 
races  is  made  strikingly  manifest  in  their  treat- 
ment of  this  very  subject  of  spelling.  A  dif- 
ficulty of  somewhat  the  same  nature,  though 
far  less  in  degree,  confronts  the  French  as 
confronts  the  English.  Their  orthography  is 
wretched.  It  is  not  by  any  means  so  wretched 
as  ours.  Still,  it  is  bad  enough  to  attract  the  at- 
tention of  men  of  learning  and  of  those  engaged 
in  the  business  of  education.  The  evil  was 
admitted.  What  should  be  the  nature  of  the 
remedy  ?  To  what  extent  should,  or  rather 
could,  reform  of  the  orthography  be  carried? 
These  are  not  revolutionary  times,  and  things 
which  are  capable  of  being  carried  through  in 
revolutionary  times  cannot  even  be  attempted 
now.  Therefore,  one  point  assumed  the  place  of 
prominence.  This  was  not  what  it  was  theoret- 
ically desirable  to  do,  but  what,  under  modern 
conditions,  it  was  practicable  to  do.  Accord- 
ingly, as  far  back  as  1903,  the  French  govern- 
ment appointed  a  commission  to  consider  the 
matter.  It  embraced  some  of  the  most  eminent 
scholars.  The  committee  made  a  report,  which 
was  submitted  by  the  government  to  the  French 
47 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Academy.  Disagreement  arose,  not  so  much  on 
matters  of  principle  as  of  detail.  A  second  com- 
mission was  appointed  to  prepare  a  final  plan 
upon  which  the  minister  of  public  instruction 
could  take  action.  Its  report  has  been  published 
and  its  conclusions  promulgated.  They  are  not 
binding,  to  be  sure.  Yet,  with  the  weight  of  the 
government  and  the  French  Academy  behind 
them,  it  is  merely  a  question  of  time  when  any 
changes  recommended  will  be  adopted  by  all. 

It  is  evident  from  this  one  fact  that  the  desire 
to  make  the  spelling  conform  as  far  as  possible 
to  the  pronunciation — the  one  object  for  which 
spelHng  was  devised — is  far  from  being  confined 
to  the  men  of  the  English-speaking  race.  Even 
when  it  cannot  succeed  in  its  main  object,  it 
aims  to  bring  about  uniformity  by  sweeping 
away^the  anomalous.  The  movement  for  spell- 
ing reform  now  going  on  with  us  is,  therefore, 
no  isolated  undertaking.  It  is  simply  part  of  a 
world-wide  movement  in  the  interests  of  law 
and  order.  There  is  an  intellectual  conscience  as 
well  as  a  moral  one.  On  this  subject  the  intellec- 
tual conscience  of  the  users  of  speech  among  all 
thoroughly  enlightened  nations  has  now  been 
distinctly  awakened.  The  only  peculiarity  about 
English  is  that  the  need  of  such  an  awakening 
is  far  more  pressing  than  in  other  tongues,  and 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  difficulty  of  discovering  the  right  track  to 
follow  is  far  greater.  Neither  Italian  nor  Span- 
ish requires  any  sweeping  change.  For  all 
practical  purposes,  these  tongues  are  phonetic. 
Irregularities  can  unquestionably  be  found,  but 
they  are  neither  numerous  nor  important. 
Above  all,  they  do  not  afifect  the  vital  represen- 
tation of  pronunciation  by  giving,  as  with  us, 
different  signs  to  the  same  sound  and  different 
sounds  to  the  same  sign.  Their  deviation  from 
the  phonetic  standard  is  confined  to  the  re- 
tention of  unnecessary  letters.  This  is  a  matter 
that  can  be  grappled  with  easily.  On  the 
limited  scale  it  exists,  it  is  not  of  much  moment. 
Any  variations  from  the  ideal  can  be  easily  cor- 
rected if  the  project  is  once  taken  seriously  in 
hand. 

In  German,  the  variation  from  the  phonetic 
standard  is  greater  than  in  the  two  tongues  just 
mentioned.  As  compared  with  English,  how- 
ever, it  is  exceedingly  slight.  Even  in  those 
instances  where  it  has  different  signs  to  represent 
the  same  sound,  it  does  not,  as  is  the  case  with 
our  speech,  make  the  confusion  more  confounded 
by  giving  to  these  same  signs  the  representation 
of  sounds  altogether  different.  But  the  public 
mind  is  awake  in  Germany  to  the  importance 
of  this  subject.  Many  of  the  more  marked 
49 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

variations  from  the  phonetic  ideal  have  already 
been  done  away  with  by  the  action  of  the  several 
governments.  For,  in  Germany,  a  nation  of 
scholars,  the  control  of  educational  methods  is 
immediately  or  remotely  in  the  hands  of  scholars. 
These  men,  not  satisfied  with  what  has  already 
been  accomplished,  are  at  work  to  do  away  with 
the  anomalies  that  continue  to  exist.  When 
once  they  come  into  accord  over  the  measures  to 
be  adopted  and  the  changes  to  be  made,  it  is 
merely  a  question  of  time  when  their  proposals 
will  be  carried  into  effect.  The  various  govern- 
ments will  do  the  work  of  promulgation  and  en- 
forcement. The  reforms  recommended  will  be 
embodied  in  the  text-books  and  taught  in  the 
schools.  That  action  once  taken,  the  whole 
work  itself  has  practically  been  done. 

Unfortunately,  none  of  the  means  just  men- 
tioned are  practicable  with  us.  The  adminis- 
tration of  education  is  nowhere  in  England  or 
America  really  centralized,  as  it  is  in  France 
and  Germany.  In  those  countries  any  changes 
which  have  behind  them  the  best  expert  opin- 
ion can  be  carried  through  with  comparative 
ease.  The  German  government  will  venture  on 
any  educational  experiments  which  have  the 
united  support  of  German  scholars.  In  France 
the  almost  superstitious  deference  paid  to  the 
50 


SPELLING    REFORM 

decisions  of  the  Academy  will  cause  any  ortho- 
graphic changes  having  the  sanction  of  that 
body  to  be  accepted  by  the  great  mass  of  the 
community.  Individuals  may  growl,  but  they 
will  submit.  More  than  once  the  Academy  has 
recommended  reforms,  and  these  have  been 
adopted  because  they  were  so  recommended. 
About  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  it 
altered  the  spelling  of  five  thousand  words. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  juster  to  say  that  it  in- 
dicated, in  the  case  of  a  number  of  these,  what 
one  should  be  adopted  of  several  forms  which 
were  then  in  use.  No  one  would  think  now 
of  going  back  to  those  against  which  it  then 
pronounced.  When,  therefore,  the  department 
of  public  instruction  and  the  Academy  work 
together  in  harmony,  their  union  is  irresist- 
ible. Once  the  reformed  spelling  is  authorized 
to  be  taught  in  the  public  schools,  the  simpler 
forms  can  be  trusted  to  work  their  way  by  that 
inherent  strength  of  their  own  which  comes 
from  inherent  sense.  Of  course,  objection  will 
be  made;  but  it  will  manifest  itself  in  little  else 
but  empty  spluttering  or  impotent  invective 
on  the  part  of  those  who  mistake  custom  and 
association  for  reason,  and  fancy  that  the  life 
of  a  word  is  found  in  the  form  in  which  they 
are  in  the  habit  of  seeing  it  clothed. 
SI 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

"They  order  these  matters  better  in  France," 
are  the  words  with  which  Sterne  begins  his 
Sentimental  Journey.  Any  action  of  the  sort 
just  mentioned  is  impossible  with  the  men  of 
the  English-speaking  race.  We  have  neither 
the  machinery  to  use,  nor  the  disposition  to  use 
it,  if  we  had  it.  There  is  nowhere,  either  in 
England  or  America,  any  great  centralized 
authority,  literary  or  administrative,  to  which 
deference  if  not  obedience  is  felt  to  be  due. 
With  us  in  the  United  States  in  particular,  we 
have  no  national  government  which  can  author- 
ize examination  of  the  subject,  still  less  enforce 
any  action.  As  little  respect  is  paid  to  the 
conclusions  of  scholars  who  have  made  the  mat- 
ter a  special  study.  With  a  great  body  of  men 
the  words  of  the  veriest  ignoramus  who  is  able 
to  get  access  to  the  columns  of  a  newspaper  are 
as  likely  to  be  heeded  as  those  of  him  who  has 
spent  years  in  the  investigation  of  the  character 
and  history  of  English  orthography.  But  if  the 
ignoramus  is  merely  an  ignoramus  in  this  sub- 
ject, if  he  chances  to  be  a  man  who  has  shown 
ability  and  gained  deserved  repute  in  some  other 
distinct  field  of  endeavor,  the  authority  he  has 
justly  secured  for  himself  in  matters  he  knows 
a  great  deal  about  is  transferred  to  any  pro- 
nouncements he  chooses  to  make  in  a  matter  he 
52 


SPELLING    REFORM 

knows  little  or  nothing  about.  In  considering 
the  construction  or  reconstruction  of  a  bridge  or 
building,  every  one  is  willing  to  defer  to  the 
judgment  of  experts.  When,  however,  it  comes 
to  the  consideration  of  spelling,  there  is  no  one 
who  does  not  have  the  comfortable  conscious- 
ness that  on  this  question  his  opinion  is  distinct- 
ly more  valuable  than  the  conclusions  reached 
by  the  wretched  cranks  who  have  taken  pains 
to  master  the  subject,  and  are  necessarily  ham- 
pered in  the  views  they  entertain  by  the  knowl- 
edge they  have  been  unfortunate  enough  to  ac- 
quire. 

Therefore,  as  contrasted  with  other  nations 
and  races,  we  are  at  a  disadvantage.  We  have 
not  the  controlling  influence  of  an  academy. 
The  government  cannot  well  take  the  initiative. 
If  one  party  embraced  it,  the  other  party  would 
be  fairly  sure  to  set  itself  in  opposition.  This 
would  not  be  necessarily  because  of  any  dislike 
to  the  project  itself,  but  for  the  sake  of  making 
party  capital.  "If  I  were  younger,"  once  re- 
marked Gladstone,  speaking  of  the  spelling,  "I 
would  gladly  take  hold  of  this  reform."  Had 
he  done  so,  can  any  one  doubt  that  whatever 
scheme  he  proposed  would  have  had  arrayed 
against  it  all  those  who  were  hostile  to  the 
views  he  advocated  on  other  subjects,  irrespcc- 
53 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

tive  of  any  feelings  they  chanced  to  entertain 
on  this  particular  one.  Political  machinery,  so 
constantly  used  to  effect  reforms,  is  consequent- 
ly barred.  In  every  English-speaking  country 
the  general  government  cannot  well  take  any 
action,  except  under  the  impulse  of  a  popular 
demand  too  wide-spread  and  too  powerful  to  be 
resisted.  There  is,  furthermore,  in  this  country 
a  special  difficulty.  In  America  it  is  not  the 
action  of  the  general  government  that  is  of 
importance,  but  the  independent  action  of  the 
several  states.  Even  if  reform  were  carried 
through  in  some  of  them,  there  would  always  be 
danger  of  discordant  measures  being  taken  in 
others. 

Only  one  resource,  therefore,  is  left  to  the 
men  of  English-speaking  countries.  It  is  by 
the  slow  processes  of  discussion  and  agitation. 
The  great  mass  of  men  must  be  convinced  by 
methods  which  will  convey  to  the  general  mind 
the  truths  that  are  known  now  only  to  the  few. 
They  nmst  be  made  to  see  both  the  desirable- 
ness and  the  practicability  of  change  before 
any  wide-reaching  results  can  be  secured.  They 
must  be  made  to  see  the  futility  of  the  argu- 
ments by  which  men  seek  to  bolster  up  the 
pretensions  of  the  existing  orthography;  the 
waste  of  time  and  efforts  involved  in  its  acquisi- 
54 


SPELLING    REFORM 

tion,  and  even  in  its  use.  More  than  all — 
though  this  is  a  matter  little  touched  upon — 
they  must  be  made  to  recognize  the  actual 
mental  injury  wrought  to  the  young  by  its 
present  condition.  The  accom.plishment  of  this 
is  not  merely  a  great  work,  but  in  English- 
speaking  lands  it  is  one  peculiarly  difficult. 
In  other  countries  it  is  necessary  to  convince 
those  who  have  more  or  less  studied  the  subject; 
for  in  their  hands  lies  largely  the  control  of  the 
machinery  of  education.  But  with  us  it  is 
necessary  to  convince  those  who  are  unfamiliar 
with  the  subject,  and  who  not  unfrequently 
have  had  their  ignorance  strongly  reinforced 
by  prejudice.  In  the  multitude  of  these  is 
found  no  small  proportion  of  the  educated  class. 


CHAPTER    II 

ATTITUDE    OF    THE    EDUCATED 

THE  unintelligent  opposition  of  the  intel- 
ligent! I  have  specified  this  as  the  most 
formidable  of  the  active  forces  hostile  to  reform 
of  English  orthography.  No  duty  is  imposed 
upon  those  who  have  that  end  in  view  more 
arduous  than  that  of  propagating  knowledge 
among  the  educated  classes.  It  is  hard  to  en- 
lighten the  ignorant  man.  But  as  regards  this 
particular  subject,  his  mind  is  practically  a 
blank  page.  As  he  has  not  mastered  the  conven- 
tional spelling,  he  not  only  has  no  knowledge 
of  it,  but  he  is  aware  that  he  has  no  knowl- 
edge of  it.  But  in  the  case  of  the  educated  man 
there  is  nothing  of  this  open-mindedness.  In 
his  opinion  he  knows  already  everything  about 
the  subject  that  can  be  known  or  that  is  neces- 
sary to  be  known.  It  is  only  within  a  very 
recent  period  that  he  has  begun  to  suspect  his 
limitations.  Only  within  a  recent  period  has 
he  exhibited  any  hesitation  about  exposing  to 
56 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  gaze  of  the  pubhc  the  scantiness  of  the 
intellectual  wardrobe  with  which  he  is  clad. 
_  This  imputation  of  ignorance  of  the  subject 
has  been  much  resented.  Nowhere  has  the 
resentment  been  keener  than  where  the  ignor- 
ance is  manifestly  profoundest.  To  the  fact 
itself  not  any  opprobrium  necessarily  attaches. 
No  educated  man  considers  it  discreditable  to 
lack  knowledge  of  the  chemical  constituents 
of  the  food  he  eats,  or  of  the  things  he  sees  and 
handles  every  day.  If,  indeed,  because  of  his 
familiarity  with  these  objects,  he  fancies  that  he 
is  competent  to  form  a  judgment  about  their 
properties  and  draws  conclusions  as  to  their  use, 
then  his  course  becomes  objectionable.  It  is 
exactly  so  in  language.  Pronunciation,  and 
the  proper  way  of  representing  it  in  spelling, 
and  the  ways  in  which  it  has  been  represented 
at  various  periods — these  are  subjects  which 
demand  long  and  severe  study  before  one  has 
a  right  even  to  state  facts.  Naturally,  still  less 
has  he  a  right  to  draw  conclusions.  He  who 
presumes  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  questions 
in  controversy  without  having  undergone  this 
preliminary  training,  no  matter  if  he  possess 
ability,  has  little  reason  to  complain  if  his 
pretensions  meet  with  a  good  deal  of  contempt 
from  those  who  have  paid  even  a  comparatively 
57 


ENGLISH    SPELLING     AND 

slight  attention  to  the  subject.  That  his  utter- 
ances are  received  with  favor  by  a  pubHc  as 
ignorant  as  himself  is  no  evidence  of  his  fitness 
to  discuss  the  matter  in  dispute.  It  is  simply- 
proof  of  the  existence  of  that  wide-spread  belief 
in  the  community,  that  because  a  person  may 
have  attained  deserved  eminence  in  some  field 
of  literary  activity,  about  which  he  knows  a 
great  deal,  he  is  therefore  entitled  to  speak  with 
authority  in  some  other  field  of  which  he  knows 
little  or  nothing. 

This  unintelligent  hostility  of  the  intelligent 
is  an  obstacle  peculiarly  difficult  to  overcome, 
because  it  is  based  upon  the  combination  of 
the  minimum  of  knowledge  with  the  maximum 
of  prejudice.  These  characteristics  frequently 
meet,  too,  in  those  who  on  other  disputed 
subjects  have  the  right  to  demand  respectful 
attention  to  all  they  choose  to  say.  To  this 
class  belong  many  men  of  letters — not  by 
any  means  all  of  them,  and  far  more  of  them 
in  England  than  in  America.  Some  of  these 
have  made  themselves  conspicuous  by  the 
violence  of  their  utterances,  some  by  the  ex- 
tent of  their  misapprehension  of  the  question 
at  issue,  and  some  by  the  display  of  a  store 
of  misinformation  so  vast  and  varied  that  one 
gets  the  impression  that  no  small  share  of 
58 


SPELLING    REFORM 

their  lives  must  have  been  spent  in  accumulat- 
ing it.  To  many  persons  it  does  not  seem  to 
occur  that  before  discussing  English  orthography- 
it  is  desirable  to  equip  one's  self  with  at  least  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  its  character  and  his- 
tory. As  the  acquisition  of  this  preliminary 
information  is  not  deemed  essential,  there  is 
little  limit  to  the  surprising  statements  made 
upon  this  subject  and  the  more  surprising  facts 
by  which  they  are  fortified.  The  annals  of 
fatuity  will  in  truth  be  searched  in  vain  for  utter- 
ances more  fatuous  than  some  of  those  pro- 
duced in  the  course  of  the  controversy  aroused 
by  the  President's  order.  There  is  a  strong 
temptation  to  substantiate  this  assertion  by 
illustrating  it  from  sayings  and  writings  of  those 
who  took  a  part  in  it  opposed  to  spelling  re- 
form. But  it  is  not  desirable  to  impart  to  the 
discussion  of  the  subject  a  personal  character  by 
selecting  such  examples  from  the  utterances 
of  living  persons.  That  the  statement  of  the 
ignorance  of  men  of  letters  is  not  unwarranted, 
however,  can  be  shown  as  well  by  bringing  in  the 
testimony  of  the  dead.  In  this  instance  it  will 
be  taken  from  an  author  of  the  past  generation, 
of  highest  literary  eminence. 

Many  will  remember  an  essay  of   Matthew 
Arnold    on    the    influence   of   academies,    that 
59 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

panacea  for  all  literary  and  linguistic  ills  so 
constantly  held  before  our  eyes.  According  to 
him  they  raised  the  general  standard  of  knowl- 
edge so  high  that  no  one  could  wantonly  run 
counter  to  its  requirements  and  escape  with  im- 
punity. The  force  of  critical  opinion  would 
control  the  vagaries  and  correct  the  extravagant 
assertions  of  the  most  learned.  In  the  case  of 
our  own  tongue  he  adduced  an  illustration  of  the 
injury  wrought  to  the  language  by  the  lack  of 
such  a  central  authority.  It  was  taken  from 
what  he  told  us  was  one  of  those  eccentric 
violations  of  correct  orthography  in  which 
men  of  our  race  wilfully  indulge.  The  offend- 
er was  the  London  Times.  That  paper  for 
a  good  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
addicted  to  printing  the  word  diocese  as  dio- 
ccss. 

This  act  aroused  Arnold's  indignation.  It  is 
clear  from  his  words  that  resentment  for  the 
course  of  the  London  Times  in  this  matter  had 
long  been  rankling  in  his  bosom.  A  lawless 
practice  of  such  a  sort  could  not  have  been 
possible,  he  felt,  in  a  country  where  speech  had 
been  subjected  to  the  beneficial  sway  of  an 
academy.  Only  in  a  land  where  no  restraining 
influence  was  exerted  upon  the  performances  of 
the  educated  class  could  such  a  violation  of 
60 


SPELLING    REFORM 

linguistic  knowledge  and  literary  good  taste  be 
permitted.     Here  are  his  words: 

"So,  again,  with  freaks  in  dealing  with  lan- 
guage; certainly  all  such  freaks  tend  to  impair 
the  power  and  beauty  of  language;  and  how 
far  more  common  they  are  with  us  than  with 
the  French!  To  take  a  very  familiar  instance. 
Every  one  has  noticed  the  way  in  which  the 
Times  chooses  to  spell  the  word  'diocese';  it 
always  spells  it  diocess,  deriving  it,  I  suppose, 
from  Zeus  and  census.  The  Journal  des  Dehats 
might  just  as  well  write  'diocess'  instead  of 
'diocese,'  but  imagine  the  Journal  des  Dehats 
doing  so!  Imagine  an  educated  Frenchman  in- 
dulging himself  in  an  orthographic  antic  of  this 
sort,  in  the  face  of  the  grave  respect  wath  which 
the  Academy  and  its  dictionary  invest  the  French 
language!  Some  people  will  say  these  are  little 
things.  They  are  not;  they  are  of  bad  example. 
They  tend  to  spread  the  baneful  notion  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  high  correct  standard 
in  intellectual  matters;  that  every  one  may  as 
well  take  his  own  way;  they  are  at  variance 
with  the  severe  discipline  necessary  for  all 
real  culture ;  they  confirm  us  in  habits  of 
wilfulness  and  eccentricity  which  hurt  our 
minds  and  damage  our  credit  with  serious  peo- 
ple." 

6i 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

No  one  will  question  the  earnestness  with 
which  these  words  are  spoken.  The  difficulty 
with  them  is  that  they  are  at  variance  with  the 
severe  discipline  necessary  for  all  real  culture 
— the  discipline  which  forbids  us  to  discuss 
magisterially  matters  we  know  nothing  about. 
Consequently,  they  are  of  particularly  bad  ex- 
ample because  of  the  eminence  of  the  writer. 
What  are  we  to  think  of  the  opinions  of  an 
author  who  could  presume  to  express  himself  in 
this  manner  on  what  he  called  correct  orthog- 
raphy? Where  did  he  get  his  knowledge  of 
that  somewhat  elusive  substance?  How  was 
he  enabled  to  pronounce  authoritatively  on  the 
proper  spelling  of  a  word  about  whose  origin 
and  history  he  had  not  taken  the  slightest  pains 
to  inform  himself?  Arnold  supposed  that  the 
London  Times  may  have  derived  diocess  from 
Zeus  and  census.  Where  did  he  himself  think 
it  came  from  ? 

Still,  as  these  words  of  his  have  been  more 
than  once  triumphantly  quoted  as  an  unin- 
tended, and  therefore  all  the  more  crushing, 
argument  against  spelling  reform  by  a  leading 
man  of  letters,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  give  a 
brief  account  of  the  actual  facts  in  regard  to 
the  appearance  of  diocese  in  our  speech,  and  the 
changes  of  form  it  underwent — so  far,  at  least, 
62 


SPELLING    REFORM 

as  dictionaries  of  various  periods  have  recorded 
the  usage.  By  so  doing  one  may  gain  some 
conception  of  the  amount  of  research  necessary 
to  pronounce  positively  upon  the  orthographic 
history  of  even  a  single  word.  He  will  further 
learn  to  recognize  the  wisdom  of  refraining  from 
the  expression  of  large  judgments  upon  the 
correctness  or  incorrectness  of  a  particular 
spelling  which  are  based  upon  limited  knowl- 
edge. To  clear  the  ground,  it  is  to  be  said — 
though  it  Stems  needless  to  say  it — that  the 
first  part  of  the  word  diocese  has  nothing  to  do 
with  Zeus,  though  one  gets  the  impression  that 
its  genitive  Dios  v^as  in  some  way  associated 
with  it  in  Arnold's  mind.  It  comes  remotely 
from  a  Greek  word  meaning  the  management 
of  a  household.  After  its  appearance  in  our 
language  in  the  fourteenth  century,  various  were 
the  forms  it  assumed.  Students  of  Chaucer  are 
well  aware  that  his  spelling  of  it  was  diocise. 
But  it  occurs  but  once  in  his  writings,  and  then 
as  a  ryme  to  gyse,  the  modern  guise.  Later, 
under  Latin  influence,  and  for  phonetic  reasons, 
it  became  commonly  either  dioces:;e  or  dioces. 

Between  these  two  forms  the  language  seems 

finally  to  have  made  a  sort  of  con\promise  by 

recognizing  the  claims  of  both.     It  dropped  the 

e  from  the  one  or  it  added  an  5  to  the  other,  just 

63 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

as  one  is  disposed  to  look  at  it.  Though  there 
were  other  forms,  dioccss  became  accordingly 
the  standard.  Such  it  remained  for  a  long 
period.  But  its  triumph  was  slow  and,  com- 
paratively speaking,  late.  Diocesse  is  the  form 
given,  for  example,  in  Minsheu's  Guide  to  the 
Tongues,  which  appeared  in  1617.  In  Edward 
Phillips'  dictionary  of  1658,  entitled  .4  New 
World  of  Words,  it  is  dioces.  But  in  later  edi- 
tions— ^certainly  in  that  of  1696 — diocess  is  the 
spelling  found.  Such  also  was  the  form  of  the 
word  in  Bullokar's  dictionary  of  1684;  in  the 
Glossographia  Anglicana  Nova  of  1719;  and  in 
Edward  Cocker's  English  dictionary  of  1724 — 
the  only  editions  of  these  works  I  have  had  the 
opportunity  to  consult.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
Coles's  English  dictionary  of  1713,  it  is  diocese. 
This  is  repeated  in  the  edition  of  171 7.  It  is 
the  earliest  instance  I  have  met  of  the  modern 
spelling,   though  others  may  exist. 

Before  the  publication  of  the  dictionary  of 
Dr.  Johnson  in  1755,  the  two  principal  works 
of  this  character  which  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  produced  were  that  of  Bailey, 
and  that  of  Dyche  improved  and  completed  by 
Pardon.  The  former  was  the  first  to  appear. 
It  indeed  seems  always  to  have  outranked  in 
popular  estimation  its  successor  and  rival.  It 
64 


SPELLING    REFORM 

came  out  first  in  1721.  Before  the  end  of  the 
century  it  had  passed  through  a  very  large 
number  of  editions.  At  the  outset  its  spelling 
of  the  word  under  consideration  was  diocess. 
So  it  remained  in  the  half  dozen  editions  that 
followed.  But  after  1730  diocese  took  its  place, 
and  held  it  during  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  On  the  other  hand,  Dyche's  dictionary, 
which  began  to  be  published  in  1735,  i^ot  only 
authorized  diocess,  but  clung  to  it  in  subsequent 
editions.  Later  in  the  century  —  certainl}^  in 
the  seventeenth  edition  of  1794 — it  permitted 
the  alternative  spelling  diocese.  This  practice, 
indeed,  can  be  met  much  earlier.  For  instance, 
in  the  second  edition  of  Benjamin  Martin's  dic- 
tionary, which  appeared  in  1754,  both  diocese 
and  diocess  are  given. 

It  was  the  choice  of  diocess  by  Doctor  Johnson 
that  turned  the  tide  for  a  while  in  one  direction. 
For  the  rest  of  the  century  it  settled  the  spelling, 
so  far  as  the  practice  of  most  men  was  concerned. 
He  was  followed  by  nearly  all  the  later  lexicogra- 
phers. This  was  true  in  particular  of  Sheridan 
and  Walker.  These  two  were  widely  accepted 
as  authorities,  especially  the  latter.  The  edi- 
tion of  Walker's  dictionary,  which  came  out  in 
1802,  just  after  his  death,  but  containing  his 
latest  revisions,  was  long  regarded  by  our 
65 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

fathers  as  a  sort  of  orthographic  and  orthoepic 
statute  -  book.  It  still  showed  diocess  as  the 
only  way  of  spelling  this  particular  word.  So 
did  the  dictionary  of  James  Sheridan  Knowles, 
which  was  first  pubUshed  in  1835.  It  continued 
to  retain  this  form  of  the  word  in  the  editions 
of  1845  and  1877.  It  is  found  even  in  the 
edition  of  Walker,  as  revised  by  Davis,  which 
appeared  in  186 1.  On  the  other  hand,  Smart's 
revision  of  the  same  work,  or  remodelling,  as  he 
called  it,  was  largely  responsible  for  the  preva- 
lence and  general  adoption  of  diocese.  This 
dictionary  was  first  published  in  1836.  It  had  a 
wide  circulation,  and  for  a  long  time  its  succes- 
sive editions  were  regarded  as  authoritative 
works  of  reference. 

This  survey  of  the  matter  is  by  no  means 
exhaustive,  but  it  is  sufficiently  complete  to 
render  certain  the  results  reached.  It  shows 
that  a  long  contest  went  on  between  the  two 
forms  of  the  word,  and  that  the  later  gradually 
triumphed  over  the  earlier.  It  shows  too  that 
diocess,  though  slowly  going  out  of  fashion, 
continued  still  in  the  best  of  use  long  after 
Arnold  had  reached  maturity.  As  always 
happens,  indeed,  there  was  a  certain  body  of 
conservatives  who  refused  to  accept  what  was 
in  their  eyes  the  new  -  fangled  monstrosity. 
66 


SPELLING    REFORM 

The  ancient  usage  was  good  enough  for  them. 
Among  these  the  London  Times,  owing  to  its 
position  in  the  newspaper  world,  occupied  a 
specially  prominent  place.  It  not  impossibly 
felt  that  in  standing  by  the  time  -  honored 
diocess  it  was  resisting  an  insidious  attempt  to 
ruin  the  language. 

All,  therefore,  that  Arnold  needed  to  do,  before 
expressing  his  opinions,  or  rather  his  prejudices, 
in  the  matter  was  to  learn  these  easily  accessible 
facts.  To  use  his  own  phraseology,  it  was  in- 
cumbent upon  him  to  let  his  mind  play  about 
the  subject  until  he  had  fully  informed  himself 
upon  it.  His  failure  to  do  this  led  him  to  fall 
into  the  mistake  he  did.  A  note  to  the  later 
edition  of  his  essays  conveys  the  glad  tidings 
that  the  London  Times  has  at  last  renounced 
the  error  of  its  ways,  and  has  succumbed  to  the 
authority  of  fashion.  Like  the  rest  of  us,  it 
now  spells  the  word  diocese.  But  the  irrevocable 
printed  page  will  continue  to  stand  and  bear 
perpetual  witness  to  the  blunder  of  its  critic. 

One  is  not,  indeed,  astonished  at  the  lack  of 
familiarity  with  the  facts  just  recorded  on  the 
part  of  a  man  of  letters.  They  lie  outside  of  his 
particular  province.  They  are  not,  indeed, 
generally  known.  Nor  are  they  in  themselves 
so  exciting  as  to  attract  the  attention,  still  less 
67 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

tlie  study,  of  anybody,  without  some  external 
provocation.  Ignorance  of  them  is,  therefore, 
nothing  discreditable.  Indeed,  we  may  almost 
expect  it  from  those  who  have  made  the  study 
of  literature  their  pursuit  in  contradistinction 
to  that  of  language.  It  gives  one,  however,  a 
sort  of  shock  to  find  that  this  same  ignorance 
has  been  occasionally  exhibited  by  linguistic 
scholars  of  the  previous  generation.  A  kind  of 
sanction  is  given  to  Arnold's  assertion  by  the 
remark  of  Richard  Gordon  Latham  on  this 
same  word  diocese.  In  his  revision,  published 
in  1871,  of  Todd's  edition  of  Johnson's  diction- 
ary, he  observed  under  it  that  it  was  "once 
ignorantly  spelled  dioccss."  No  wonder  that  the 
Times  succumbed  to  this  combined  attack 
of  learning  and  letters  marching  under  a  com- 
mon banner  of  inadequate  investigation  and 
erroneous  assertion. 

I  have  gone  at  great  length  into  the  considera- 
tion of  this  particular  example,  not  entirely 
from  the  eminence  of  the  author  who  chose  to 
furnish  it.  As  much  were  these  details  supplied 
in  order  to  make  manifest  how  patient  and 
protracted  must  be  the  study  which  will  au- 
thorize any  one  to  pronounce  decisively  upon  a 
question  of  disputed  spelling.  As  long  as  the 
advocates  of  the  existing  orthography  confine 
68 


SPELLING    REFORM 

themselves  merely  to  the  expression  of  their 
prejudices  and  opinions,  they  are  comparatively 
safe,  even  though  their  prejudices  have  no  foun- 
dation in  reason  and  their  opinions  have  behind 
them  no  trace  of  investigation.  The  moment, 
however,  they  attempt  to  fortify  their  notions 
by  illustrations  and  argument,  they  are  lost. 

This  is  the  moral  of  the  tale  told  of  Arnold. 
There  are  circumstances  in  which  no  amount  of 
genius  can  make  up  for  the  lack  of  a  little  ac- 
curate knowledge.  It  is  not  often  given  to  an 
essayist  to  exemplify  himself  a  practice  he 
vehemently  condemns  in  the  very  paragraph 
containing  the  condemnation.  If  academies 
really  exerted  the  power  with  which  Arnold 
credited  them;  if  they  could  exercise  a  con- 
trolling influence  over  public  opinion;  if  they 
could  establish  so  broad  a  basis  of  intelligence 
that  men  would  be  prevented  from  giving  ut- 
terance to  crude  and  hasty  dicta;  if  they  could 
keep  writers  from  palming  off  upon  the  public 
the  results  of  imperfect  knowledge  acting  through 
the  medium  of  perfect  prejudice — if  these  things 
were  so,  it  is  quite  clear  that  in  this  particular 
instance  it  would  have  been  the  utterances  of 
Matthew  Arnold  that  would  have  been  sup- 
pressed, and  not  the  assumed  orthographical 
vagaries  of  the  London  Times.  In  Germany, 
69 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

where  there  is  no  academy,  but  where  there  is  a 
broad  and  lofty  level  of  linguistic  intelligence, 
observations  of  a  similar  character  would  have 
met  with  immediate  and  crushing  exposure  and 
censure.  In  England  and  America,  where  there 
is  a  broad  and  deep  level  of  linguistic  ignorance, 
this  blundering  statement  has  long  been  hailed 
by  many  as  a  proper  rebuke  to  the  miscreants 
who  are  seeking  to  defile  the  sacred  altar  of 
English  orthography. 

An  extravagant  outburst  like  the  one  just 
cited— it  could  easily  be  paralleled  from  recent 
utterances — coming  from  a  man  occupying  a  far 
higher  position  than  any  literary  defender  of 
the  present  spelling,  reveals  what  a  fathomless 
abyss  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  must  be  filled 
up  or  bridged  over  before  there  can  be  even  a 
calm  discussion  of  the  subject  by  the  mass  of 
educated  men.  If  we  are  unable  to  treat  with 
respect  the  utterances  of  great  men  who  are  ca- 
pable of  falling  into  errors  like  the  one  just  ex- 
posed, how  can  we  be  expected  to  be  impressed 
by  the  words  of  little  men  who  cite  these  easily 
detected  blunders  as  an  authoritative  justifica- 
tion for  their  own  hostility?  Because  they  deal 
with  language  as  an  art,  they  fancy  they  know 
all  about  it  as  a  science.  There  is  no  intention 
of  conveying  the  impression  that  men  of  letters 
70 


SPELLING    REFORM 

are  more  remarkable  than  others  for  erroneous 
assertions  on  this  subject.  As  a  class  they  are 
probabl}'-  less  so.  In  their  ranks,  too,  are  to  be 
found  some  of  the  most  earnest  sympathizers 
with  the  movement  for  the  simplification  of 
the  spelling.  These,  too,  stand  in  the  first  rank. 
It  must  not  be  assumed,  therefore,  that  those 
among  them  who  have  gained  an  unenviable 
notoriety  by  the  blunders  into  which  they  have 
fallen  in  opposing  it  are  more  ignorant  than 
other  men.  They  have  simply  had  furnished 
them  by  their  position  unequalled  opportunities 
to  make  their  ignorance  conspicuous. 

Now,  to  any  real  student  of  the  subject,  it  is 
evident  that  both  in  French  and  in  English  the 
most  conservative  of  courses  has  been  con- 
templated and  taken,  so  far  as  any  change  in 
orthography  has  been  recommended.  No  at- 
tempt has  been  made  to  introduce  phonetic 
spelling.  Any  intention  of  that  sort  has  been 
distinctly  disclaimed  by  those  among  us  who 
have  set  the  reform  on  foot.  Yet  it  is  a  charge 
from  which  they  have  been  unable  to  escape. 
One  of  the  most  striking  as  well  as  most  en- 
tertaining features  of  the  controversy  that 
went  on  was  the  persistent  assertion  of  those 
concerned  in  the  movement,  that  they  had  no 
design  or  desire  to  introduce  phonetic  spelling; 
6  71 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

and  the  equally  persistent  assertion  of  their 
assailants  that  it  was  the  very  thing  they  were 
aiming  to  introduce.  One  side  laid  down 
precisely  what  it  sought  to  do.  The  other  side 
denounced  it  for  doing  the  very  thing  it  dis- 
claimed doing.  One  side  declared  that  it  pur- 
posely limited  its  efforts  to  the  removal  of 
some  of  the  anomalies  in  our  present  orthog- 
raphy, and  the  obstacles  put  by  these  in  the  way 
of  its  acquisition.  The  other  employed  two 
methods  of  attack:  on  the  one  hand,  it  inveighed 
against  its  opponents  for  going  as  far  as  they 
did;  on  the  other,  it  reproached  them  for  their 
inconsistency  in  not  going  further. 

Any  one  who  has  the  slightest  conception  of 
what  a  reform  of  our  spelling  on  pure  phonetic 
principles  means  will  absolve  those  now  urging 
reform  from  putting  forward  any  scheme  of 
that  sort.  It  requires,  indeed,  a  singular  in- 
nocence of  all  knowledge  of  this  particular  sub- 
ject to  make  such  a  charge.  Certain  changes 
recommended  would,  indeed,  have  brought  par- 
ticular words  nearer  a  phonetic  standard.  But 
if  everything  proposed  were  to  be  universally 
adopted — and  even  ten  times  more — the  real 
disease  which  afflicts  our  orthography  would  be 
but  partially  alleviated.  It  would  do  little  more 
than  set  us  on  the  road  to  a  thorough-going 
72 


SPELLING    REFORM 

refornar.  No  one,  indeed,  who  comprehends 
what  is  required,  in  a  language  so  lawless  as 
ours,  to  bring  about  a  perfect  accordance  be- 
tween orthography  and  orthoepy,  is  ever  likely 
to  underrate  the  difficulties  which  stand  in  the 
way  of  the  establishment  of  phonetic  spelling, 
even  were  men  as  eager  for  its  adoption  as  they 
are  now  hostile  to  it.  In  the  present  state  of 
feeling,  therefore,  no  one  need  distress  himself 
about  its  immediate  coming. 

But  why  should  any  one  distress  himself  at 
all  ?  Little  is  there  more  extraordinary  to  wit- 
ness in  these  days  of  assumed  general  enlighten- 
ment than  the  horror  which  many  estimable 
persons  seem  to  feel  at  the  danger  of  being  de- 
voured by  this  dreadful  ogre  which  they  call 
phonetic  spelling.  They  have  no  idea  what  it 
is,  but  they  know  from  its  name  that  it  must 
be  something  frightful.  Now,  written  language 
was  designed  to  be  phonetic.  Its  intention,  how- 
ever incomplete  its  realization,  was  to  represent 
invariably  the  same  sound  by  the  same  letter 
or  by  the  same  combination  of  letters.  This 
idea  lies  at  the  root  of  the  conception  of  the 
alphabet;  otherwise  the  alphabet  would  have 
had  no  reason  for  its  existence.  To  picture  to 
the  eye  the  sound  which  has  fallen  upon  the 
ear,  so  that  it  should  never  be  mistaken  for  any- 
73 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

thing  else,  was  the  problem  that  presented  itself 
to  the  man  or  men  who  devised  that  invention 
which,  imperfect  as  it  is,  still  remains  the  great- 
est and  most  useful  to  which  the  human  mind 
has  given  birth.  To  represent  a  sound  by  one 
character  in  one  place  and  by  another  in  an- 
other would  have  seemed  to  them  as  absurd  as 
it  would  to  a  painter  to  have  the  figure  of  a 
horse  stand  for  a  horse  in  one  picture,  and 
in  another  picture  for  a  different  animal.  Of 
course,  in  this  comparison  the  symbol  is  in  one 
case  real,  and  in  the  other  arbitrary;  but  the 
underlying  principle  is  the  same. 

So  far  as  the  original  invention  of  the  alphabet 
failed  to  secure  the  individual  representation  of 
every  sound  then  used,  the  invention  was  itself 
incomplete  and  imperfect.  So  far,  again,  as  the 
characters  of  the  alphabet  have  been  diverted 
from  their  original  design  of  representing  par- 
ticular sounds,  it  is  not  an  application  of  the 
invention,  but  a  perversion  of  it  to  inferior 
purposes,  and  to  purposes  for  which  it  is  not 
really  fitted.  One  general  statement  applicable 
to  all  languages  can  be  safely  made.  So  far 
as  written  speech  deviates  from  the  phonetic 
standard,  it  fails  to  fulfil  the  object  for  which 
it  was  created.  It  shows  to  what  an  extent 
the  English  race  has  wandered  away  in  feel- 
74 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ing  and  opinion  from  the  original  motives 
which  led  men  to  seek  the  representation  of  the 
spoken  word  by  written  characters,  that  its 
members  have  come  to  look  upon  the  perfect 
accordance  of  orthography  and  orthoepy  as  a 
result,  not  merely  impracticable — which  is  a 
thoroughly  defensible  proposition — but  as  some- 
thing in  itsel;  undesirable,  as  something  fraught 
with  ruin  to  the  speech  itself.  The  written  word 
was  devised  to  suggest  the  sound  of  the  spoken 
word.  Yet  this  ideal  is  more  than  discredited 
with  us;  it  is  treated  as  if  it  were  in  some  way 
peculiarly  monstrous.  Yet  all  there  is  of  value 
in  our  existing  orthography  is  due  to  what  still 
survives  of  the  phonetic  element.  This  is  a 
condition  of  things  which  will  be  brought  out 
fully  when  the  orthographic  situation  comes  to 
be  considered. 

The  real  life  of  a  language  consists  in  its 
sounds,  not  in  the  signs  intended  to  represent 
them.  The  one  is  the  soul  of  speech ;  the  other 
can  hardly  be  considered  a  necessary  bodily 
framework,  for  the  former  could  and  does  exist 
without  the  latter.  In  earlier  times,  when 
language  was  lea/ned  almost  exclusively  by  the 
ear,  this  fact  would  naturally  force  itself  upon 
the  attention  of  every  reflecting  man.  But  with 
the  spread  of  education,  when  acquaintance  with 
75 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

a  tongue  is  acquired  largely  through  tlie  eye,  the 
knowledge  of  the  symbolic  representation  of 
sounds  has  come  to  predominate  in  the  minds  of 
the  men  of  our  race  over  the  knowledge  of  the 
sounds  themselves.  While  all  of  us  are  fa- 
miliar with  the  one,  but  few  are  with  the  other. 
Ask  any  person  of  ordinary  attainments  the 
number  of  letters  in  the  English  alphabet.  He 
will  unhesitatingly  answer  twenty-six;  though 
the  chances  are  that  he  will  be  ignorant  of  the 
fact  that  some  of  the  twenty-six  are  really 
supernumerary.  But  extend  the  inquiry  further. 
Go  with  it  to  the  vast  body  of  educated  men,  ex- 
cluding those  whose  pursuits  require  of  them 
more  or  less  the  study  of  phonetics.  These  being 
excepted,  ask  any  single  person  belonging  to  the 
most  highly  cultivated  class — opponents  of  spell- 
ing reform  to  be  preferred — how  many  are  the 
sounds  which  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  and 
their  combinations  are  called  upon  to  represent. 
Ask  him  how  many  are  the  sounds  which  he  is 
in  the  habit  of  employing  himself  in  his  own 
utterance.  The  chances  are  fifty  to  one  that  he 
will  be  utterly  at  a  loss  what  to  reply.  He  has 
learned  the  symbols  of  things ;  he  has  not  learned 
the  things  themselves. 

That  this  should  be  so  in  the  case  of  our  own 
tongue  is  not  particularly  surprising.     It  is,  per- 
76 


SPELLING    REFORM 

haps,  inevitable.  The  attention  of  the  men  of 
our  race  has  been  more  than  distracted  from 
any  consideration  of  the  subject  by  the  character 
of  our  orthography.  Their  minds  have  been 
thrown  into  a  state  of  bewilderment.  As  a 
single  illustration,  take  the  representation  of 
the  sound  usually  termed  "long  i."  This  third 
so-called  vowel  of  our  alphabet  is  not  really  a 
vowel,  but  a  diphthong.  Its  sound  is  most 
commonly  represented  by  the  single  letter  it- 
self, seen,  for  instance,  in  such  a  word  as  mind. 
But  some  idea  of  the  uncertainty  and  range  at- 
tending its  use,  with  the  consequent  perplexity 
to  its  users,  can  be  gathered  from  a  few  selected 
examples.  It  is  represented  by  ai  in  aisle;  by 
ay  in  aye;  by  ei  in  height;  by  ey  in  eye;  by  ie  in 
lie;  by  oi  in  choir;  by  uy  in  buy;  by  y  in  try; 
and  by  ye  in  dye.  Or,  reverse  the  operation,  and 
see  how  many  sounds  the  same  sign  can  repre- 
sent. Take  the  combination  ou,  and  observe 
the  differences  of  its  pronunciation  in  the  words 
about,  young,  youth,  four,  jought,  would,  and  cough. 
English  orthography,  therefore,  instead  of 
teaching  the  English-speaking  man  the  knc/wl- 
edge  and  distinction  of  sounds,  takes  the  speed- 
iest and  most  effectual  means  of  jjreventing  his 
attaining  any  such  knovv'ledge.  It  not  merely 
fails  to  call  his  attention  to  it,  it  forces  him  to 
77 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

disregard  it,  to  look  upon  it  as  an  element  not 
properly  to  be  considered.  He  does  not  come 
to  forget,  he  has  never  learned  to  know  that 
there  is  a  particular  value  that  belongs  or  ought 
to  belong  to  any  vowel  or  combination  of 
vowels.  When  he  grows  up,  he  is  naturally 
ready  to  despise  what  he  is  unable  to  compre- 
hend. The  educated  class  has  with  us  come 
generally  to  look  upon  the  alphabet  as  a  mere 
mechanical  contrivance.  They  have  so  largely 
lost  sight  of  the  object  for  which  it  exists,  that 
in  many  cases  they  are  almost  disposed  to  re- 
sent the  proposition  that  they  should  employ  it 
for  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  created.  It 
would  be  thinking  too  meanly  of  human  nature 
to  believe  that  men  would  delight  in  this  con- 
dition of  things  did  they  once  come  fully  to  ap- 
preciate it.  But  to  that  point  few  of  them  ever 
arrive.  Accordingly,  ignorance  of  the  real  evil 
disposes  them  to  look  with  distrust  upon  any 
attempt  to  remedy  it. 

In  truth,  as  a  consequence  of  the  confusion 
which  exists  in  the  written  speech,  the  English 
race,  as  a  race,  has  no  acquaintance  whatever 
with  sounds.  It  has  largely  lost  the  phonetic 
sense.  One  whole  important  domain  of  knowl- 
edge, which  ought  to  have  come  to  it  through  the 
spelling,  has  entirely  disappeared  from  recogni- 
78 


SPELLING    REFORM 

tion  without  their  being  aware  of  it.  Examples 
of  the  prevalent  lack  of  any  conception  of  the 
distinction  of  sounds  and  of  their  proper  repre- 
sentation are  brought  constantly  to  the  atten- 
tion of  those  engaged  in  the  work  of  instruction. 
But  the  comments  and  communications  which 
appear  in  the  course  of  any  controversy  on 
spelling  reform,  especially  those  intended  to  be 
satirical,  furnish  the  most  striking  illustrations 
of  this  all-prevailing,  all-pervading  ignorance. 
There  is  rarely  furnished  a  more  edifying  spec- 
tacle than  the  attempt  made,  in  some  cases  by 
men  of  very  genuine  ability,  to  write  what  they 
call  phonetically.  In  every  discussion  there  are 
sure  to  come  up  with  unfailing  regularity  certain 
examples  that  indicate  the  density  of  the 
darkness  in  which  the  minds  of  men  are  en- 
veloped. Several  years  ago  a  series  of  articles 
appeared  in  a  Western  periodical  attacking  the 
reform  of  the  orthography.  In  one  of  them 
occurred  this  observation:  "We  are  asked," 
said  the  author,  "  to  spell  are  without  the  e, 
because  the  letter  is  not  pronounced.  Very 
well:  then  drop  the  a,  for  that  is  not  pro- 
nounced either."  In  the  same  spirit  the  writer 
went  on  to  say  that  fanatical  advocates  of 
change  should  denote  the  words  see  and  sea 
simply  by  c — "  spelling  only  the  letter  sounded." 
79 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Here  was  a  person  producing  a  series  of  arti- 
cles on  orthography  who  was  so  utterly  unac- 
quainted with  the  primary  elemental  facts  of 
orthoepy  as  to  fancy  that  the  sound  of  r  and 
of  c  by  themselves  is  the  same  as  the  name  we 
give  to  those  letters;  who  did  not  know  that  the 
name  cannot  be  pronounced  unless  a  vowel 
precedes  the  r  in  one  case  and  follows  the  c  in 
the  other.  Exactly  the  same  examf)les  were 
adduced  in  the  course  of  the  latest  controversy. 
It  is  perfectly  clear  that  not  one  of  those  who' 
made  use  of  them  had  the  slightest  conception  of 
what  was  essential  to  convey  the  representation 
of  a  given  sound.  Any  arbitrary  symbol,  pro- 
nounced in  a  particular  way,  seemed  to  them  all- 
sufificient.  Their  action  evinced  hardly  higher 
intelligence  than  would  have  been  shown  by 
considering  the  word  five  as  phonetically  repre- 
sented by  the  Arabic  numeral  5,  which  in  all 
languages  conveys  the  same  meaning,  and  in 
all  languages  has  a  different  pronunciation. 
One  characteristic  there  is  Avhich  denotes  most 
distinctly  the  infantile  state  of  knowledge  that 
still  continues  to  prevail  on  the  whole  sub- 
ject. By  most  men  any  bad  spelling  is  inva- 
riably termed  phonetic  spelling.  That  is  all  the 
idea  of  the  latter  they  have.  The  spelling 
of  Chaucer  would  in  their  eyes  be  indistin- 
80 


SPELLING    REFORM 

guishable    in  character  from  that  of  Josh  Bil- 
lings. 

More  than  once  have  advocates  of  spelling 
reform  been  rebuked  for  the  arrogance  mani- 
fested by  them  in  their  references  to  the  in- 
accurate assertions  and  loose  thinking  which 
largely  make  up  the  chatter  of  the  uninformed 
on  this  subject.  On  the  contrary,  much  of  this 
gabble  seems  to  me  to  have  been  treated  with 
singular  leniency.  Especially  has  this  been  the 
case  when  it  comes  from  men  who  liave  shown 
knowledge  on  other  subjects  and  ability  in 
other  directions.  These  have  too  often  missed 
opportunities,  which  were  fairly  obtrusive,  of 
remaining  silent  on  this  matter.  But  no  such 
forbearance  is  due  to  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
noisy  intruders  into  a  controversy  they  do  not 
understand.  There  was  a  writer  who  gravely 
informed  us  that  it  is  an  insuperable  objection 
to  a  change  in  our  orthography,  that  it  would 
make  necessary  a  new  formative  period  in  the 
history  of  the  language.  For  fear  that  the  full 
force  of  this  terrible  indictment  should  be  over- 
looked, he  proceeded  to  put  the  w^ords  contain- 
ing it  in  italics.  What  possible  conception  could 
exist  in  the  mind  of  such  an  objector  as  to 
what  constitutes  a  formative  period  in  the  his- 
tory of  a  language  ?     Does  spelling  reform  intro- 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

duce  new  words  ?  Does  it  give  new  meanings 
to  old  ones?  Does  it  destroy  existing  inflec- 
tions ?  Does  it  add  any  to  their  number  ?  Does 
it  vary  in  the  slightest  the  order  of  words  in 
the  sentence?  Does  it  cause  the  least  modifi- 
cation of  the  least  important  rule  of  syntax? 
A  new  spelling  meaning  a  new  language !  Fancy 
a  boy  refusing  to  wash  his  face,  on  the  ground 
that  if  the  dirt  were  removed  he  would  not  be 
the  same  boy.  Fancy  a  man  objecting  to  put- 
ting on  a  new  suit  of  clothes,  on  the  ground  that 
by  so  doing  he  could  never  be  again  what  he 
was  before;  that  the  integrity  of  his  character 
and  the  continuity  of  his  traditions  would  be 
destroyed ;  that  he  would  no  longer  be  the  same 
man  to  those  who  had  known  him  and  loved 
him.  This  is  not  a  travesty  of  the  argument 
which  has  been  advanced.  It  is  the  argument 
itself,  applied  not  to  the  dress  of  the  body,  but 
to  that  of  the  speech.  The  men  who  hold  such 
opinions  are  really  in  the  same  grade  of  in- 
tellectual development  as  regards  language,  as 
in  literature  are  those  who  fancy  that  beginning 
a  line  with  a  capital  letter  is  the  one  essential 
thing  which  constitutes  poetry. 

But  of  all  the  educated  opponents  of  spelling 
reform,  I  have  to  confess  that  the  most  enter- 
taining to  me  are  women.     As  devotion  to  the 
82 


SPELLING    REFORM 

present  orthography  is  a  matter  of  sentiment 
and  not  one  of  reason,  it  is  perhaps  not  strange 
that  some  of  the  most  violent  opponents  of  the 
present  movement  are  to  be  found  among  the 
members  of  that  sex  with  which  appeals  ad- 
dressed to  the  feelings  are  peculiarly  potent. 
It  must  not,  however,  be  assumed  for  a  moment 
that  this  characterization  is  meant  to  apply  to 
all  women.  On  the  contrary,  among  them  can 
be  found  not  only  many  of  the  most  earnest 
advocates  of  reform,  but  an  especially  large 
proportion  of  the  most  intelligent  and  clear- 
headed. This  observation  is  particularly  true  of 
those  of  them  who  are  connected  directly  or  in- 
directly with  the  profession  of  teaching.  To 
the  hands  of  women,  indeed,  the  business  of 
the  instruction  of  the  very  young  is  almost 
entirely  committed.  They  make  themselves 
familiar  with  the  character  of  the  orthography 
from  the  side  of  both  theory  and  practice.  They 
have,  in  consequence,  forced  upon  their  atten- 
tion, as  have  few  men,  the  absurdities  and 
anomalies  of  our  present  spelling,  the  unneces- 
sary and  utterly  irrational  obstacles  it  puts  in 
the  path  of  the  learner ;  the  time  and  toil  which 
must  be  spent,  or  rather  wasted,  in  mastering 
rules  to  which  the  exceptions  are  as  numerous 
as  the  examples,  and  in  which  exceptions  abound 
83 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

to  the  exceptions.  The  intelligent  among  them 
naturally  come  to  know  whereof  they  speak, 
and  to  have  decided  opinions  born  of  experience 
and  observation. 

But  experience  and  observation  of  this  sort 
have  not  been  forced  upon  the  majority  of  even 
educated  women.  Acquaintance  with  the  real 
nature  of  our  orthography  is  not,  in  their  eyes, 
a  matter  of  intrinsic  importance.  Accordingly, 
in  the  case  of  those  who  feel  intensely  on  this 
subject  and  exhibit  a  virulent  hostility  toward 
reform  of  the  spelling,  we  can  observe  the  pe- 
culiar mental  effervescence  which  is  produced 
when  the  maximum  of  emotion  is  allowed  to 
operate  upon  the  minimum  of  knowledge.  With 
them  the  question  is  not  at  all  one  of  argument. 
It  is  entirely  one  of  taste,  as  they  regard  taste; 
though  occasionally  there  seems  to  be  an  honest 
even  if  unfounded  belief  that  arguments  have 
been  employed.  It  is  their  sensibilities  that 
are  outraged,  not  their  reason.  I  confess  to 
liking  the  attitude  of  these  opponents  of  spell- 
ing reform,  and  to  receiving  gratification  from 
their  extremest  utterances.  They  are  entirely 
free  from  the  sham  in  which  men  indulge,  of 
pretending  to  be  influenced  in  their  beliefs  on 
this  subject  by  logical  principles.  Sojourning 
in  that  upper  rarefied  air  of  sentiment  in  which 
84 


SPELLING    REFORM 

common-sense  staggers  and  reason  swoons,  there 
is  an  indefinable  charm  in  the  irrationahty  they 
display  in  resolutely  ignoring  facts  they  find 
inconvenient  to  consider  and  arguments  they 
disdain  to  comprehend. 

No  pleasure,  indeed,  can  be  conceived  more 
delightful  than  in  listening  to  the  discussion  of 
this  subject  by  its  female  opponents.  As  this 
is  largely  a  book  of  personal  confessions,  I  may 
be  permitted  to  say  that  I  like  to  hear  them 
talk  and  to  read  what  they  write.  They  feel 
about  reform  of  the  spelling  as  did  in  another 
way  certain  of  their  high-born  sisters  who  have 
left  behind  memorials  of  their  experiences  when 
the  great  cataclysm  of  the  French  revolution 
took  place.  It  was  apparently  not  the  scenes 
of  horror  and  massacre  that  shocked  these  scions 
of  noble  families;  not  the  victims  carted  in 
tumbrils  to  the  guillotine;  not  the  fusillades 
which  swept  the  streets  and  stained  the  pave- 
ments with  the  blood  of  those  who  fell  fighting 
for  the  old  regime.  Nor  w^as  it  the  question  of 
right  or  wrong,  of  relieving  oppression,  of  es- 
tablishing justice.  Not  one  of  these  things 
seems  to  have  made  a  particular  impression 
upon  their  minds.  What  really  affected  them 
was  something  altogether  different.  The  revo- 
lution was  in  such  bad  taste.  Men  like  Danton 
85 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

and  his  associates  did  not  behave  in  a  gentle- 
manly way.  They  were  not  really  nice.  Just 
so — if  we  can  compare  small  things  with  great — 
is  the  impression  one  gets  of  the  attitude  of 
many  women  who  are  hostile  to  the  new  spell- 
ings proposed.  Such  may  be  nearer  the  pro- 
nunciation. They  may  be  nearer  the  deriva- 
tion or  some  other  old  thing  for  which  nobody 
cares.  But  these  new  spellings  are  not  really 
nice. 

This  devotion  of  woman  to  the  fixed  orthog- 
raphy is  largely  a  modern  sentiment.  There 
was  little  of  it  in  the  past,  either  in  theory  or 
practice.  In  fact,  high  position  and  sex  were 
once  largely  regarded  as  entitling  those  belong- 
ing to  either  to  be  exempt  from  orthographic 
trammels.  Richardson  represents  Charlotte 
Grandison  as  describing  one  of  her  lovers  as 
"spelling  pretty  well  for  a  lord."  But  in  this 
same  particular  several  of  the  most  noted  women 
in  the  past  have  also  been  defective.  There  was 
nothing  then  of  the  superstition  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  orthography  which  now  prevails. 
They  apparently  did  not  deem  it  possible  to 
secure  the  leisure  to  make  themselves  as  attrac- 
tive as  they  wished  to  be,  were  they  compelled 
to  waste  their  time  in  memorizing  the  exact 
spelling  of  words  whose  forms  they  had  the 
86 


SPELLING    REFORM 

sense  to  see  exhibited  no  sense.  As  time  went 
on  their  indifference  not  unfrequently  came 
to  disturb  those  of  their  lords  and  masters 
who  were  getting  to  be  punctilious  on  this 
point.  Swift,  who  in  one  way  or  another  was 
always  in  a  state  of  anxiety  about  the  Eng- 
lish language,  had  frequent  occasion  to  chasten 
Stella  on  the  subject.  "  I  drink  no  aile  (I  sup- 
pose you  mean  ale),"  he  writes  to  her  under 
date  of  September  29,  17 10.  "Who  are  these 
wiggs,"  he  asks  again  on  October  8,  "who  think 
I  am  turned  Tory?  Do  you  mean  Whigs?" 
"  Pray,  Stella,"  he  says,  in  April  of  the  following 
year,  "  explain  those  two  words  of  yours  to  me, 
what  you  mean  by  Villian  and  Dainger.''  "  Ri- 
diculous, madam?"  he  expostulated,  on  another 
occasion;  "I  suppose  you  mean  ridiculous:  let 
me  have  no  more  of  that;  it  is  the  author  of  the 
Atlantis'  spelling."  '  One  infers  from  this  re- 
mark that  the  then  noted  Mrs.  Manley  was  as 
notorious  for  the  scandalous  form  in  which  her 
words  appeared  in  her  manuscript  as  she  was 
for  the  scandalous  meaning  they  conveyed  when 
appearing  in  print. 

One  could  fill  page  after  page  v/ith  the  ex- 
traordinary   views    on    spelling    reform    which 

•  Swift.     Journal  to  Stella,  December  14,  1710. 
7  87 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

have  come  from  men  and  women  of  education 
and  sometimes  of  genuine  ability.  The  con- 
troversy, indeed,  which  has  been  going  on  of 
late  has  brought  out  more  sharply  than  ever 
before  the  existence  of  the  singular  situation 
which  prevails  in  regard  to  it.  The  highly 
trained  expert  opinion  is  practically  all  on  one 
side;  the  large  preponderance  of  educated  lay 
opinion  is  apparently  on  the  other.  Several 
eminent  men  have  taken  part  in  the  discussion  in 
opposition  to  change.  But  in  all  their  ranks 
cannot  be  found  a  single  one  who  would  be  rec- 
ognized by  special  students  of  English  as  en- 
titled to  speak  with  authority.  Not  a  single  one 
of  the  latter  class  has  come  forward  in  opposition. 
Some  of  them  are  very  possibly  indifferent;  but 
so  far  as  they  have  spoken — and  many  have 
spoken — they  have  pronounced  in  its  favor.  If 
there  is  among  them  one  who  entertains  hos- 
tility, he  is  sufficiently  in  awe  of  his  professional 
brethren  to  deem  it  wise  to  keep  his  opinion 
to  the  sanctity  of  private  intercourse.  No 
applause  of  the  multitude  could  make  up  to 
him  for  the  condemnation  that  would  be  his 
from  his  peers.  By  ranging  himself  among  the 
opponents  of  spelling  reform  he  would  be  well 
aware  that  he  would  distinctly  lose  caste.  He 
would  be  placed  in  a  dilemma  on  one  of  whose 
88 


SPELLING    REFORM 

two  horns  he  would  be  impaled.  He  would  be 
looked  upon  as  guilty  either  of  lack  of  knowl- 
edge or  of  lack  of  judgment. 

This  is  a  state  of  things  that  could  not  well 
exist  in  the  case  of  any  other  subject  than  lan- 
guage. Nor,  indeed,  could  it  well  happen  with 
any  other  race  than  the  English,  where  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  ignorance  of  our  tongue 
and  of  its  history  has  been  sedulously  cultivated 
for  centuries.  Accordingly,  the  raggedest  of 
penny-a-liners  or  the  callowest  of  story-tellers 
considers  himself  as  much  entitled  to  speak  with 
authority  on  the  subject  as  he  who  has  devoted 
5'ears  of  study  to  its  consideration.  Of  course, 
this  is  a  state  of  things  that  cannot  continue 
permanently.  In  the  long  run  the  opinions  of 
the  few  who  know  will  triumph  over  the  clamors 
of  the  many  who  do  not  know.  Indeed,  a  dis- 
tinct advance  has  already  been  achieved.  The 
subject  is  no  longer  treated  with  indifference. 
It  calls  forth  hostile  criticism,  ridicule,  vitu- 
peration. Furthermore,  certain  things  can  no 
more  be  said  which  were  once  said  with  smug 
satisfaction.  We  are  now  a  long  way  beyond 
that  provincial  faith  in  Worcester  which  per- 
mitted, fifty  years  ago,  so  eminent  a  man  of 
letters  as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  to  remark  that 
Boston  had  for  one  of  its  distinctions  "its  cor- 
89 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

rect  habit  of  spelling  the  English  language." 
In  these  days  an  author  of  his  high  grade  would 
be  saved  by  his  inevitable  association  with  Eng- 
lish scholars  from  perpetrating  an  observation 
so  singularly  crude.  Views  of  such  a  sort  now 
find  their  home  only  in  the  congenial  clime  of 
the  remote  rural  districts.  For  slow  as  has  been 
the  progress  in  this  matter,  it  has  been  steady. 
In  the  immediate  future  it  is  destined  to  ad- 
vance at  a  much  more  rapid  rate.  The  leading 
universities  of  America  are  regularly  sending 
out  a  small  body  of  trained  special  students  of 
our  speech.  In  the  face  of  this  steadily  in- 
creasing number  of  experts  whose  opinions  are 
based  upon  adequate  investigation  and  full 
knowledge,  sciolists  will  in  time  conclude  for 
their  own  safety  to  learn  a  little  before  they  talk 
much. 

Yet,  neither  now  nor  in  the  past  has  the 
advocacy  of  spelling  reform  been  confined  to 
the  specialists  in  English  study.  It  has  em- 
braced scholars  of  all  lands  who  paid  attention 
to  our  language  or  to  some  form  of  its  literature. 
Long  ago  Grimm  pointed  out  that  the  greatest 
obstacle  to  the  predominating  influence  of  the 
English  tongue  was  the  character  of  its  orthog- 
raphy. But  without  going  so  far  back,  let 
us  select  as  types  of  advocates  of  reform  three 
90 


SPELLING    REFORM 

representative  men  of  the  generation  which  has 
just  passed  away.  They  are  Professor  Max 
Miiller,  of  Oxford;  Professor  Child,  of  Harvard; 
and  Professor  Whitney,  of  Yale.  Of  course, 
these  scholars  were  cranks — "crazy  cranks," 
if  you  will.  Much  learning  had  made  them 
mad — insanity  from  that  cause  being  something 
from  which  the  critics  of  their  orthographical 
views  feel  the  sense  of  absolute  immunity.  Of 
course,  we  know  further  that  professors  are  a 
simple,  guileless  folk,  constantly  imposed  upon 
by  arguments  whose  speciousness  is  at  once 
seen  by  the  clearer  vision  of  the  men  engaged 
in  the  struggle  and  turmoil  of  practical  life. 
To  them  unhappily  has  never  been  given  the  easy 
omniscience  which  is  enabled  to  understand  the 
whole  of  a  subject  without  mastering  a  single 
one  of  its  details.  Still,  as  a  member  of  this 
unpractical  fraternity,  and  sharing  in  its  in- 
tellectual limitations,  I  cannot  get  over  the  im- 
pression that  there  are  difficulties  connected 
with  English  orthography  which  even  the  very 
youngest  newspaper  writer  cannot  settle  sum- 
marily, and  questions  which  he  cannot  answer 
satisfactorily  offhand. 

In    truth,    the    real    nature    of    our    spelling 
and  the  real  difficulties  connected  with  its  re- 
formation are  not  in  the  least  understood  by  the 
91 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

vast  majority  of  the  educated  class.  Otherwise 
it  would  be  impossible  for  men,  sometimes  of 
genuine  ability,  to  give  public  utterance  to  the 
views  they  entertain.  One  has  only  to  read 
articles  in  magazines  and  communications  sent 
to  the  newspapers  to  gain  a  view  both  vivid 
and  depressing  of  the  w^ide-spread  ignorance 
that  prevails.  It  is  manifest,  indeed,  that  the 
nature  of  these  difficulties  is  not  always  under- 
stood, even  by  those  who  are  earnest  in  their 
desire  for  reform  of  some  kind.  Accordingly, 
before  the  subject  can  be  discussed  intelligently, 
some  knowledge  of  the  general  orthographic 
situation  must  be  secured.  The  irrepressible 
conflict  that  goes  on  in  our  speech  between 
spelling  and  pronunciation  can  never  be  really 
appreciated,  save  by  him  who  has  mastered 
a  portion  at  least  of  the  details  in  which 
that  conflict  has  reached  its  highest  degree  of 
intensity. 

To  set  these  details  forth  is  anything  but  an 
agreeable  task.  The  subject  of  sounds  and  the 
methods  taken  to  represent  them  cannot,  by  the 
wildest  stretch  of  the  imagination,  be  termed 
exhilarating.  But  some  notion  of  it  must  be 
gained  by  him  who  seeks  to  get  any  conception 
of  what  must  be  deemed  the  main  trouble  affect- 
ing English  orthography.  This  is  the  reason, 
92 


SPELLING    REFORM 

and  to  some  must  be  the  excuse,  for  presenting 
the  results  of  a  piece  of  drudgery  as  wearisome 
as  it  is  thankless.  The  dose  I  shall  try  to  make 
as  palatable  as  possible;  but  there  is  no  disguis- 
ing the  fact  that  it  is  a  dose.  But  it  is  only  by 
swallowing  it,  or  something  akin  to  it,  that  men 
can  get  any  conception  of  the  real  evils  that 
afflict  English  spelling,  and  of  the  methods 
that  must  be  taken  to  palliate  them;  for  in  the 
present  state  of  public  opinion,  it  is  hopeless  to 
attempt  to  cure  them.  To  a  consideration  of 
the  orthographic  situation  the  next  chapter 
will  therefore  be  devoted. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    ORTHOGRAPHIC    SITUATION 

I 

THE    PROBLEM 

IT  is  with  a  good  deal  of  hesitation  that  I  ap- 
proach this  part  of  my  subject.  To  treat  it 
fully,  to  consider  it  in  all  its  details,  would  re- 
quire a  familiarity  with  the  history  of  sounds, 
with  their  precise  values,  and  with  the  proper 
way  of  representing  these  values,  to  which  I 
can  lay  no  claim.  Though  I  have  given  some 
time  to  the  study  of  this  branch  of  the  general 
question,  I  am  well  aware  that  my  knowledge 
of  it  is  not  the  knowledge  of  a  professional,  but 
of  an  amateur.  It  is  only  when  I  read  the  at- 
tempts of  the  assailants  of  spelling  reform  to 
write  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  phonetically, 
that  my  own  slender  acquaintance  with  this 
field  of  research  looms  up  momentarily  before 
my  eyes  as  endowed  with  colossal  proportions. 
Fortunately,  intimate  familiarity  with  this  par- 
94 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ticular  part  of  the  subject  is  not  needed  for  the 
end  had  here  in  view.  To  point  out  the  evils 
afflicting  our  present  system  is  possible  for  him 
who  is  unable  to  prescribe  a  remedy.  This  is 
the  special  task  which  I  set  before  myself  in  this 
section. 

It  is  essential,  in  the  first  place,  to  have  clear- 
ly before  our  minds  the  nature  of  the  problem 
with  which  we  are  called  upon  to  deal.  The 
general  statement  about  it  may  be  and  often 
is  summarized  in  a  few  words.  We  are  told 
that  in  English  the  same  sound  is  represented 
by  half  a  dozen  signs,  and  the  same  sign  is  used 
to  denote  half  a  dozen  sounds.  This  is  all  true. 
Unfortunately,  to  the  vast  majority  of  men  it 
conveys  no  definite  idea.  It  certainly  would 
not  bring  clearly  before  them  much  conception 
of  the  real  difficulty.  Some  of  them  would  even 
be  puzzled  to  explain  what  is  meant  here  by  the 
word  sign.  Most  of  them  have  no  knowledge 
whatever  of  the  number  and  quality  of  the 
sounds  they  use.  This  remark  is  not  intended  as 
a  reproach.  Their  condition  of  ignorance  is  due 
to  no  fault  of  their  own.  The  existing  orthog- 
raphy does  not  content  itself  with  hiding  from 
the  ordinary  eye  all  knowledge  of  phonetic  law; 
it  puts  a  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  its  ac- 
quisition. Accordingly,  it  does  more  than  per- 
95 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

mit  ignorance  of  the  subject;  it  fosters  it.  Men 
are  not  led  to  consider  even  the  most  aggres- 
sively prominent  facts  of  their  own  utterance. 
I  have  known  intelligent  young  persons,  of  much 
more  than  ordinary  ability,  who  had  never 
learned  as  a  matter  of  knowledge  that  the 
digraph  th  has  two  distinct  sounds;  that  were 
thiyi  pronounced  as  is  then,  or  then  as  is  thin, 
we  should  have  in  each  case  another  word  than 
the  one  we  actually  possess.  They  had  never 
confused  the  two  in  their  usage,  but  as  little 
had  they  been  in  the  habit  of  remarking  the 
difference  between  them.  Consequently,  when 
it  was  brought  directly  to  their  attention,  it  came 
upon  them  as  a  sort  of  surprise.  If  a  distinction 
which  lies  on  the  very  surface  could  so  easily 
escape  notice,  what  hope  can  be  entertained  of 
gaining  a  realizing  sense  of  those  subtler  ones 
which  abound  on  every  side  ? 

The  first  point,  therefore,  to  be  made  em- 
phatic is  that  there  is  a  large  number  of  sounds 
in  the  speech  and  but  a  limited  number  of  signs 
in  the  alphabet.  The  number  of  sounds  has 
been  variously  estimated.  It  depends  a  good 
deal  upon  the  extent  to  which  the  orthoepic  in- 
vestigator is  disposed  to  recognize  differences 
more  or  less  subtle  and  the  weight  he  assigns 
to  each.  In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  usual- 
96 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ly  the  lowest  number  given  is  thirty-eight,  and 
the  highest  forty-four.  A  very  common  esti- 
mate puts  them  at  forty-two.  Exactness  on 
this  point  is  not  necessary  for  the  purpose  here 
aimed  at,  and  for  the  sake  of  convenience  the 
whole  number  of  sounds  will  be  temporarily 
assumed  to  be  forty,  more  or  less.  To  repre- 
sent these  forty  sounds  we  have  nominally 
twenty-six  letters.  Really  we  have  but  twenty- 
three.  Either  c  or  k  is  supernumerary,  as  are 
also  X  and  q. 

Here,  then,  lies  the  initial  difficulty.  The 
Roman  alphabet  we  have  adopted  has  not  a 
sufficient  number  of  letters  to  do  the  duty  re- 
quired of  it.  For  us  its  inability  has  been  fur- 
ther aggravated  by  the  loss  of  two  signs  which 
the  language  had  originally,  or  acquired  early  in 
its  history.  For  the  disappearance  of  these  there 
was  later  in  another  quarter  a  partial  com- 
pensation in  the  differentiation  of  i  and  /,  and 
of  u  and  v.  Of  the  two  vanished  signs  one  was 
a  Rune,  called  "thorn"  or  the  "thorn  letter,"  \>, 
the  other  a  crossed  d,  represented  by  d.  They 
were  or  could  be  used  to  represent  the  surd  or 
hard  initial  sound  heard  in  thin  just  mentioned, 
and  the  corresponding  sonant  or  soft  sound 
heard  in  then.  These  two  letters,  unknown  to 
the  Roman  alphabet,  were  allowed  to  die  out 
97 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

of  general  use  in  the  fifteenth  century.  Of  both 
the  digraph  th  took  the  place.  Yet  in  one  way 
the  so-called  thorn  letter  has  left  behind  a 
memorial  of  itself.  Its  form  had  something  of 
a  resemblance  to  the  black-letter  character  y. 
Consequently,  when  "thorn"  ceased  to  be  used, 
y  was  at  times  substituted  for  it.  Especially 
was  this  true  in  the  case  of  the  words  the  and 
that.  These  were  frequently  printed  as  y  and 
y'.  This  form  of  the  latter  word  disappeared 
after  a  while,  not  merely  from  use,  but  prac- 
tically from  remembrance.  Ye,  however,  in 
the  sense  of  the,  but  with  its  initial  letter  given 
the  sound  of  y,  is  fondly  cherished  and  sometimes 
employed  by  certain  persons,  who  indulge  in 
the  delusion  that  by  so  doing  they  are  writing 
and  talking  Old  English. 

The  use  of  this  one  digraph  to  represent  these 
two  distinct  sounds  inevitably  tends  to  create 
uncertainty  of  pronunciation,  if  not  to  produce 
confusion.  We  can  see  this  fact  exemplified  in 
the  case  of  such  words  as  tithe  and  path  and  oath 
and  mouth.  In  these  th  has  in  the  singular  the 
surd  sound,  in  the  plural  the  sonant.  The  proper 
way  of  pronouncing  them  has  therefore  to  be 
learned  carefully  in  each  individual  instance, 
for  there  is  nothing  in  the  spelling  to  indicate 
it.  Usage  in  truth  is  very  fluctuating  with  re- 
98 


SPELLING    REFORM 

spect  to  some  of  the  words  in  which  this  di- 
graph appears.  In  consequence,  the  question  of 
their  pronunciation  begets  at  times  much  con- 
troversy. Still,  compared  with  the  uncertainty 
attending  other  signs,  the  perplexities  caused 
by  this  are  of  slight  importance. 

The  lack  of  a  sufficient  number  of  signs  to 
indicate  the  sounds  is  therefore  the  first  dif- 
ficulty to  be  encountered.  But  this  is  a  defect 
which  English  shares  with  several  tongues 
which  have  adopted  the  Roman  alphabet. 
There  is  another  characteristic  which  belongs 
to  our  language  exclusively.  This  is  the  pro- 
gressive movement  which  has  gone  on  in  the 
case  of  some  of  the  vowel-sounds.  In  the  his- 
toric development  of  English  pronunciation 
several  of  these  have  lost  their  original  values. 
This  has  caused  them  not  merely  to  deviate 
from  the  sounds  they  once  had  in  our  own 
speech,  but  has  also  brought  them  out  of  har- 
mony with  those  of  the  cultivated  tongues  of 
modern  Europe.  In  none  of  these  have  the 
original  values  experienced  any  such  distur- 
bance. Such  a  condition  of  things  is  so  peculiar 
to  our  language,  it  complicates  the  whole  or- 
thographic situation  so  thoroughly,  that  it  de- 
mands first  consideration  in  any  discussion  of 
the  various  problems  that  need  to  be  solved. 
99 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Let  us  give  briefly,  then,  the  most  important 
facts  in  regard  to  the  changes  which  have  taken 
place  in  the  history  of  these  sounds. 


II 

MOVEMENT    OF    VOWEL-SOUNDS 

The  first  vowel-sound  of  the  alphabet — the  a 
heard  in  father  and  jar — has  been  aptly  styled 
"the  fundamental  vowel-tone  of  the  human 
voice."  But  the  noticeable  fact  about  it  in 
English  is  that  it  has  not  only  gone  largely  out 
of  use  already,  but  that  it  tends  to  go  out  of  use 
more  and  more.  Once  the  most  common  of 
articulate  utterances,  it  has  now  become  one 
of  the  rarest.  In  reducing  the  employment  of  it 
English  has  gone  beyond  all  other  modern  cul- 
tivated tongues.  The  decline  in  its  use  has 
been  steady.  "  In  the  Sanskrit,"  says  Whitney, 
"  in  its  long  and  short  forms  it  makes  over  seven- 
ty per  cent,  of  the  vowels  and  about  thirty  per 
cent,  of  the  whole  alphabet."  In  examining 
his  own  utterance  he  rated  the  frequency  of  its 
occurrence  at  a  little  more  than  half  of  one  per 
cent.  This  may  be  taken  as  fairly  representa- 
tive of  the  fortunes  which  have  generally  be- 
fallen the  sound.     Difl:erent  parts  of  the  English- 

lOO 


SPELLING    REFORM 

speaking  world  preserve  it,  indeed,  in  dififerent 
degrees.  In  Great.  Britain — if  I  can  take  as 
typical  of  all  persons  the  pronunciation  of  it 
furnished  to  my  own  ears  by  a  few — it  is  re- 
tained more  fully  than  in  the  United  States. 
But  even  there  it  has  for  a  long  period  been  dis- 
appearing. There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
with  our  present  orthography  this  process  will 
not  continue  to  go  on. 

The  loss  of  this  sound  would  assuredly  be  a 
great  calamity  to  the  speech.  The  coming  of 
that  day  may  be  distant;  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
it  will  never  come  at  all.  Yet  owing  to  the  in- 
capacity of  our  orthography  to  represent  pro- 
nunciation strictly,  and  therefore  hold  it  fast 
permanently,  the  sound  is  certainly  in  danger 
of  following  to  the  very  end  the  road  on  which 
it  has  long  been  travelling.  It  shows  every 
sign  of  steady  though  slow  disappearance.  Once 
it  was  heard  generally  in  many  classes  of  words 
where  it  is  now  never  heard  at  all.  Such,  for 
instance,  was  the  case  when  a  was  followed  by 
n,  as  in  answer,  chance,  dance,  plant;  by  /,  as  in 
after;  by  s,  as  in  grass,  glass,  pass;  by  st,  as  in 
last  and  vast.  More  than  a  century  ago  the 
lexicographer  Walker  contended  that  this  sound 
must  formerly  have  been  always  heard  in  these 
and  such  like  words,  because  it  was  "  still  the 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

sound  given  to  them  by  the  vulgar,  who  are 
generally  the  last  to  alter  the  common  pro- 
nunciation." There  can  be  little  doubt  of  the 
fact.  In  truth,  Doctor  Johnson  distinctly  speci- 
fied rather,  fancy,  congratulate,  glass  among 
others  as  having  it.  Walker  added  that  "  the 
short  a  in  these  words" — those  mentioned 
above — "is  now  the  general  pronunciation  of 
the  polite  and  learned  world."  Hence,  he  felt 
justified  in  asserting  that  the  ancient  sound 
"borders  very  closely  on  vulgarity." 

This  same  result  is  showing  itself  in  the  in- 
stances where  the  vowel  is  followed  by  other 
letters  or  combinations  of  letters.  Before  // 
and  th — which  can  be  illustrated  respectively 
by  calf,  half,  and  by  path,  bath — the  original 
sound,  once  generally  heard,  has  given  way 
largely  and  is  still  giving  way.  There  are  cer- 
tainly many  parts  of  the  English-speaking  world 
where  the  older  pronunciation  of  it  would  be  the 
exception  and  not  the  rule.  The  most  effective 
agent  in  retaining  it  is  a  following  r.  In  this 
case  the  sound  is  heard  in  no  small  number  of 
words,  as  may  be  seen,  for  illustration,  in  bar 
and  car.  Another  agency  working  for  its  re- 
tention, though  far  less  powerful  than  the 
preceding,  is  a  following  /,  as  in  balm  and  calm. 
But  in  this  second  case  the  sound  is  even  now 

I02 


SPELLING    REFORM 

threatened  with  extinction.  It  exhibits  in  many 
places  weakness  of  hold  upon  the  utterance. 
Hence,  it  may  come  to  take  the  road  already 
trodden  by  other  words  in  which  it  once  showed 
itself.  In  the  case  of  some  of  these,  as  a  result 
of  diminishing  use,  the  sound,  when  heard,  for 
illustration,  in  words  like  half  and  calf,  is  al- 
ready looked  upon  by  many  as  an  affectation. 
Should  such  a  feeling  about  it  come  not  only  to 
exist  but  to  prevail  when  the  vowel  is  followed 
by  Im,  its  doom  would  be  sealed.  To  hear 
psalm  pronounced  as  the  proper  name  Sam  is 
still  hateful  to  the  orthoepically  pure.  Such 
a  usage  can  as  yet  be  politely  termed  a  pro- 
vincialism, or,  insultingly,  a  vulgarism.  Yet 
against  the  levelling  tendency  of  an  orthogra- 
phy which  does  not  protect  pronunciation,  it  is 
possible  that  the  earlier  sound  of  a  in  these  words 
may  not  be  able  to  hold  out  forever. 

So  much  for  the  first  vowel  of  the  alphabet. 
We  are  as  badly  off,  though  in  a  different  way, 
when  we  come  to  the  second.  It  emphasizes  the 
degeneracy  which  has  overtaken  our  whole  or- 
thographic and  orthoepic  system  that  the  name 
we  now  give  to  the  first  vowel  was  originally  and 
still  is  scientifically  the  long  sound  of  the  second. 
The  respective  short  and  long  values  of  this  are 
heard  in  the  words  met  and  mate.  In  them 
8  103 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

are  indicated  the  two  sounds  which  tjie  second 
vowel  once  had  with  us,  and  which  it  still 
retains  in  other  cultivated  tongues.  The  short 
sound  continues  to  exist  in  all  its  primitive  vigor, 
but  the  long  sound  is  now  very  generally  denoted 
by  a.  E  itself  no  longer  has  it,  save  in  the  ex- 
clamation eh,  and  in  certain  cases  where  it  is 
followed  by  i  or  y,  vSuch  as  vein  and  rein,  and 
they  or  obey.  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  would  be 
better  to  say  that,  strictly  speaking,  this  letter 
by  itself  never  indicates  the  sound  at  all;  for 
the  digraphs  ei  and  ey,  as  we  shall  see  later,  have 
various  distinct  values,  and  are  therefore  en- 
titled to  be  considered  independently. 

A  condition  of  things  not  essentially  dis- 
similar can  be  reported  of  the  next  vowel.  Its 
original  corresponding  short  and  long  sounds 
would  be  exactly  represented  by  those  heard 
in  the  words  /i//  and  feel.  But  the  same  transi- 
tion or  progression  which  has  waited  upon  the 
second  vowel  has  also  attended  the  third.  Its 
proper  long  sound  has  now  become  the  name 
by  which  we  regularly  designate  the  second 
vowel.  The  fortimes  of  i  have  accordingly 
been  about  the  same  as  those  of  its  predecessor  e. 
Here  again  the  genuine  short  sound  has  been 
preserved  in  its  integrity  and  on  a  large  scale. 
But  the  letter  is  now  only  occasionally  used  to 
104 


SPELLING    REFORM 

denote  the  long  sound  it  had  originally.  This 
employment  of  it  occurs  too  mainly  in  com- 
paratively recent  words  of  foreign  origin.  These 
have  brought  with  them  to  a  greater  or  less  ex- 
tent the  pronunciation  they  had  in  the  tongue 
from  which  they  came.  Some  of  the  most 
common  of  these  words  are  caprice  and  police; 
fatigue  and  intrigue;  profile;  machine,  maga- 
zine, marine,  and  routine;  and  antique,  critique, 
oblique,  and  pique.  Once  too  it  belonged  to 
oblige,  and  even  to  this  day  the  pronunciation 
obleege  is  occasionally  heard. 

What  we  call  the  third  vowel  is  not  a  vowel, 
but  a  diphthong.  We  can  see  its  sound  and  real 
character  indicated  in  the  Roman  pronunciation 
of  CcBsar,  the  German  kaiser,  or  in  the  ae  of  the 
Spanish  maestro.  Against  this  general  move- 
ment it  can  be  said  that  the  long  and  short 
sounds  of  the  fourth  vowel  are  much  nearer 
their  originals.  This  is  by  no  means  true, 
however,  of  the  fifth.  The  genuine  correspond- 
ing long  and  short  sounds  of  it  can  be  seen  rep- 
resented in  the  words  fool  and  full.  But  we 
now  almost  universally  apply  the  term  "short 
m"  to  the  neutral  sound  heard  in  but  and  burn. 
This  sound  occurs  on  the  most  extensive  scale. 
It  has,  in  fact,  come  to  be  one  of  the  most  common 
in  our  pronunciation,  as  to  it  all  the  vowels  of 
105 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

the  unaccented  syllables  are  disposed  to  tend. 
Even  the  sound  of  u  in  accented  syllables  begins 
to  show  occasional  traces  of  this  degeneration. 
Who  has  not  heard  that  provincial  pronuncia- 
tion of  the  verb  put  which  gives  it  the  exact 
value  of  the  initial  syllable  of  putty  f  With 
nothing  in  our  orthography  to  give  fixity  to 
orthoepy,  there  is  little  limit  to  the  possibilities 
lying  before  this  so-called  "short  w"  in  the  way 
of  displacing  other  sounds. 

Let  us  now  summarize  the  facts  of  the  situa- 
tion. The  primal  sound  of  the  first  vowel  is 
on  the  road  to  complete  disappearance.  The 
long  sound  of  the  second  vowel  has  usurped  the 
name  and  in  part  the  proper  functions  of  the 
first.  The  long  sound  of  the  third  vowel  has 
performed  a  similar  office  for  the  second.  The 
third  vowel,  so-called,  is  a  diphthong.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  short  sounds  of  these  three 
vowels — seen  in  sat,  set,  sit — continue  to  exist  in 
their  original  integrity.  All  of  them  are  em- 
ployed on  an  extensive  scale.  Furthermore, 
the  regular  long  and  short  sounds  of  u  have  no 
longer  the  prominence  they  once  had  in  connec- 
tion with  this  vowel.  To  the  popular  appre- 
hension the  idea  of  it  is  supplied,  as  has  just 
been  said,  by  the  neutral  vowel-sound  we  call 
"vShort  u."  This  has  largely  taken  the  place  of 
io6 


SPELLING    REFORM 

other  vowel-sounds,  and  threatens  to  do  so  still 
more  in  the  future. 

The  confusion  in  the  use  of  the  vowel-signs 
is  itself  reinforced  by  the  condition  of  the 
alphabet.  For  the  former,  indeed,  the  latter 
is  in  no  small  measure  responsible.  Behind  all 
the  other  agencies  which  have  brought  about 
the  present  wretched  condition  of  our  orthog- 
raphy stands  out  its  one  most  glaring  defect. 
The  Roman  alphabet  we  have  adopted  as  our 
own  is  unequal  to  the  demand  made  upon  it. 
The  three  diphthongs  being  included  in  the  con- 
sideration, we  have  at  a  low  calculation  fifteen 
vowel-sounds  and  but  five  characters  to  repre- 
sent them.  According  to  a  more  common  cal- 
culation, we  have  eighteen  vowel-sounds  to  be 
represented  by  this  limited  number.  With  the 
consonants  we  are  a  good  deal  better  off.  The 
supernumeraries  being  excluded,  there  are  eigh- 
teen single  characters  for  the  twenty-four  sounds 
to  be  denoted. 

To  make  up  for  this  deficiency  of  letters,  two 
courses  lay  open  to  the  users  of  English ;  rather, 
two  courses  were  forced  upon  them.  One  was 
to  have  the  same  sign  represent  two  or  more 
sounds.  This  was  at  best  a  poor  method  of 
relief.  Even  had  it  been  done  correctly  and 
systematically,  so  far  as  that  result  could  be 
107 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

accomplished,  it  could  not  have  failed  to  be  un- 
satisfactory. It  would  have  been  an  attempt  to 
impose  upon  these  few  signs  a  burden  they  were 
unable  to  carry.  But  not  even  was  this  im- 
perfect result  achieved.  Apparently  it  was  not 
even  aimed  at.  The  sounds  of  the  vowels  have 
been  so  confused  with  one  another  that  no  fixed 
value  can  be  attached  to  any  vowel-sign.  They 
are  often  used  for  each  other  in  the  most  law- 
less fashion.  So  much  is  this  the  case  that  it 
is  frequently  impossible  to  tell  from  the  spelling 
of  a  word  what  is  the  pronunciation  of  its  vowel, 
or  from  the  pronunciation  of  its  vowel  what  is 
the  speUing  of  the  word. 

There  was  another  way  followed  to  meet  the 
difficulty.  This  second  method  was  to  make 
the  best  of  the  situation  by  that  combination  of 
vowels,  or  that  combination  of  vowel  and  con- 
sonant, or  of  two  consonants,  to  which  we  have 
given  the  name  of  digraphs.  The  first  of  these 
do  not  really  constitute  diphthongs,  though  such 
they  have  sometimes  been  termed.  This  method 
was  far  more  sensible  than  the  preceding.  The 
task  of  making  combinations  of  letters  which 
should  represent  only  particular  sounds  would 
have  been,  to  be  sure,  a  hard  one.  The  law- 
lessness pervading  our  vowel  -  system  would 
doubtless  have  prevented  it  from  being  carried 
io8 


SPELLING    REFORM 

out  with  thoroughness.  But  carried  out  imper- 
fectly, it  would  have  been  a  distinct  improve- 
ment upon  what  we  have  now.  But  so  far  from 
any  attempt  having  been  made  to  accomplish  it 
on  even  an  imperfect  scale,  it  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  been  undertaken  at  all.  There  are 
two  instances,  indeed,  in  which  such  combina- 
tions have  an  invariable  or  nearly  invariable 
value.  One  of  these  is  aw,  found  in  such  words 
as  hawl  and  lawn.  This  digraph  never  has  any 
other  sound  than  that  of  the  so-called  "  broad 
a" — heard,  for  illustration,  in  jail  and  salt.  The 
other  is  ee,  seen  in  seen  itself,  as  well  as  in  a 
number  of  other  words.  With  two  or  three  ex- 
ceptions, this  combination  has  that  sound  of  the 
third  vowel  we  now  ascribe  to  the  second  and 
call  "long  e"  But  in  both  these  instances  the 
limitation  of  the  digraph  to  the  representation 
of  a  single  sound  was  a  result  of  accident  rather 
than  of  design.  These  combinations  were  in 
truth  left  to  run  the  same  haphazard  course 
which  the  letters  composing  them  had  usually 
followed.  Accordingly,  to  them  extended  the 
lawlessness  pervading  the  vowel-system.  As  a 
consequence,  the  pronunciation  of  the  numerous 
digraphs  became,  as  we  shall  see  later,  as  vary- 
ing and  uncertain  as  that  of  the  single  vowels 
themselves. 

109 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  specific 
details  upon  which  have  been  based  the  general 
statements  just  made.  Not  by  any  means  all 
of  them.  There  is  no  intention  here  of  setting 
forth  an  exhaustive  enumeration  of  the  facts 
that  could  be  presented.  Even  did  I  possess 
the  phonetic  knowledge,  which  I  lack,  sufficient 
to  do  this  properly  and  fully,  the  undertaking 
would  have  lain  outside  of  my  plan.  Further- 
more, it  would  hinder  the  effect  of  the  argu- 
ment for  most  persons  rather  than  help  it. 
The  mass  of  detail  would  be  oppressive  by  its 
volume,  and  for  that  very  reason  less  impressive. 
Accordingly,  I  throw  out  of  consideration  any 
representation  of  the  variations  of  pronuncia- 
tion to  be  found  in  unaccented  syllables.  In 
them  indistinctness  of  sound,  owing  to  the 
inability  of  our  present  orthography  to  denote 
precise  values,  has  gone  beyond  that  prevailing 
in  the  other  cultivated  tongues  of  modern 
Europe.  Not  only  are  the  vowel-sounds  in  such 
syllables  pronounced  differently  by  different  in- 
dividuals, they  are  pronounced  differently  by 
the  same  individual  at  different  times.  In  par- 
ticular the  precise  pronunciation  will  be  apt  to 
vary  with  the  speaker's  rapidity  or  slowness  of 
utterance.  In  one  case  the  exact  sound  will 
come  out  with  perfect  distinctness,  in  another 
no 


SPELLING    REFORM 

it  will  be  hard  to  tell  by  what  vowel  it  is  repre- 
sented. It  is  enough  to  say  here  of  the  unac- 
cented syllables  that  there  is  a  strong  tendency, 
especially  in  hasty  utterance,  to  give  to  them 
generally  the  sound  of  that  neutral  vowel  we 
commonly  call  "short  «." 

It  is  accordingly  in  these  unaccented  syllables 
that  so  many  were  wont  to  trip  in  the  spelling 
contests  once  so  popular.  It  was  not  unusual 
to  have  the  very  best  equipped  contestant  fail. 
He  attempted  to  use  his  reason;  to  succeed,  it 
was  essential  to  discard  that  and  trust  instead 
to  his  memory.  Take,  for  illustration,  so  com- 
mon a  verb  as  separate.  Who,  ignorant  of  the 
word,  could  tell  from  the  ordinary  pronuncia- 
tion of  it — even  when  that  is  reasonably  dis- 
tinct— what  is  the  precise  sound  heard  in  the 
case  of  the  second  syllable  ?  Should  it  be  repre- 
sented by  an  a  or  an  e?  The  actual  fact  has  to 
be  learned,  not  through  the  agency  of  the  ear, 
but  through  that  of  the  eye.  This  is  but  a 
single  instance  out  of  hundreds  that  could  be 
cited  where  a  similar  uncertainty  must  always 
prevail  because  the  pronunciation  cannot  act 
as  a  clear  guide  to  the  present  spelling. 

In  the  following  pages,  therefore,  attention 
shall  be  directed  mainly  to  setting  forth  some  of 
the  most  salient  facts  which  reveal,  in  a  way 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

easily  comprehensible,  the  confusion  existing  in 
our  present  orthography.  For  this  purpose  the 
discussion  is  intentionally  confined  almost  en- 
tirely to  those  syllables  upon  M^hich  the  prin- 
cipal accent  falls.  In  a  few  instances  some 
syllables  will  be  included  upon  which  rests  the 
secondary  accent.  In  both  cases,  however,  the 
examples  will  be  selected  of  words  in  which  the 
distinction  of  sound  is  plainly  apparent  to  all, 
and  easily  recognizable.  This  limits  the  dis- 
cussion to  but  a  section  of  the  whole  fi.eld.  But 
though  far  from  covering  the  ground,  the  abso- 
lute truth  of  the  general  statements  about  the 
condition  of  our  orthography  will  appear  dis- 
tinctly manifest  to  him  who  has  the  patience 
to  wade  through  the  following  dreary  assem- 
blage of  facts,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more 
proper  to  .say,  the  following  assemblage  of 
dreary  facts.  Beginning  with  the  vowel-system, 
the  various  letters  or  combinations  of  letters  will 
be  set  forth  which  are  used  to  indicate  the  same 
sound.  In  a  number  of  instances  these  signs 
occur  on  a  very  small  scale.  Accordingly,  three 
examples  of  every  one  will  be  invariably  given 
when  the  sound  heard  is  represented  frequently 
by  the  spelling,  or  at  least  more  or  less  fre- 
quently. When  but  one  or  two  words  are 
specified,  this  smaller  number  will  denote  that 

I  12 


SPELLING    REFORM 

these  are  all  the  ordinary  ones  of  that  class — 
exclusive  of  derivatives  and  compounds — which 
are  known  to  exist.  At  any  rate,  they  are  all 
that  are  known  to  exist  to  the  writer.  It  is 
not  unlikely  that  examples  have  been  over- 
looked which  will  suggest  themselves  to  the 
reader.     We  begin  with  the  vowel-system. 


Ill 

THE    VOWELS 

The  vowel  a  demands  first  attention.  The 
sound  of  it,  heard  in  father  and  jar,  has  been 
spoken  of  as  disappearing.  The  simple  vowel 
usually  represents  it,  so  far  as  it  continues  to 
exist.  Other  signs,  however,  are  occasionally 
employed.  It  is  heard  in  the  ua  of  guard  and 
gua?'dian,  in  the  ea  of  heart,  and  also  of  hearken 
when  so  spelled;  and  finally  in  England  in  the 
e  of  clerk,  sergeant,  and  a  few  other  words.  Once 
much  more  common,  it  has  even  there  steadily 
given  way  before  the  advance  of  the  so-called 
"short  u"  sound,  occurring  in  such  words  as  her. 
In  the  pronunciation  of  some  it  is  further  repre- 
sented, for  illustration,  by  the  au  of  haunt  and 
haunch.  On  the  other  hand,  as  contrasted  with 
this  declining  use,  the  regular  short  sound  of  a, 
113 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

heard  in  man  and  mat,  is  preserved  in  its  fullest 
vigor.  In  the  large  majority  of  instances  it  is 
indicated  by  the  simple  letter  itself.  The  ex- 
ceptions to  this  representation  of  it  are  merely 
sporadic.  Such  are  the  ua  of  guarantee  and  the 
,ai  of  plaid. 

But  dismissing  the  consideration  of  these 
two  sounds  of  this  vowel,  take  those  heard  re- 
spectively in  the  words  fare,  fall,  and  fate.  Let 
us  begin  .with  the  first  of  these.  Its  sound  is 
denoted  in  many  words  by  the  simple  vowel, 
as  can  be  seen  in  pare,  care,  declare.  But  it  is 
also  indicated  by  ai  in  pair,  hair,  stair;  by  ay 
in  prayer;  by  e  in  there  and  where;  and  by  ei  in 
their  and  heir.  The  second  of  these  is  the  au 
sound  heard  in  all,  warm,  want.  It  is  not  un- 
frequently  denominated  "broad  a."  But  be- 
sides this  vowel  the  sound  is  further  represented 
by  o  in  such  words  as  oft,  loss,  song;  by  au  in 
daub,  haul,  taught,  and  the  like;  similarly  by 
aw  in  saw,  drawn,  bawl,  and  numerous  others; 
by  oa  in  broad;  and  by  ou  in  sought,  thought, 
bought. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  so- 
called  long  sound  of  a  does  not  strictly  belong 
to  it;  that  it  is  really  an  e  sound.  But  as  it  has 
imposed  its  name  upon  the  vowel,  it  is  properly 
to  be  considered  with  it  in  any  treatise  which 
114 


SPELLING    REFORM 

appeals  to  the  general  public.  Its  most  usual 
representative  is  the  letter  itself,  seen  in  pale, 
pane,  page,  and  in  scores  of  words  in  which  the 
presence  of  an  unpronounced  final  e  has  come  to 
indicate  generally,  though  not  invariably,  that 
the  preceding  vowel  is  long.  But  then  again  it 
is  represented  by  ai  in  pail,  pain,  exclaim;  by 
ay  in  lay,  pay,  day;  by  ea  in  great,  steak,  break; 
by  ei  in  veil,  vein,  heinous;  and  by  ey  in  they, 
obey  and  survey.  In  the  interjection  eh  the 
vowel  has  for  once  its  original  sound.  Again 
there  are  two  instances  in  which  a  digraph  with 
this  sound  occurs  in  but  a  single  case.  These 
two  are  the  ao  of  gaol  and  the  an  of  gauge. 

In  the  case  of  the  first  of  these  words  there 
were  two  ways  of  spelling  it  which  existed  from 
the  fourteenth  century.  These  are  gaol  and 
jail.  The  first  form  comes  from  the  dialect  of 
Normandy,  the  second  from  that  of  Paris.  Both 
have  been  in  use  from  the  beginning.  About 
both  there  has  been  to  some  extent  contro- 
versy, at  least  in  the  past.  The  New  Historical 
Dictionary,  which  contains  a  full  history  of  the 
origin  and  use  of  these  two  forms,  gives  us  a 
quotation  bearing  upon  this  point  from  Roger 
L' Estrange 's  translation  of  the  Visions  of 
Quevedo.  In  this  version,  which  appeared  in 
1668,  English  allusions  were  not  unfrequently 
"5 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Introduced.  In  one  instance  men  are  represent- 
ed as  being  in  a  state  of  rage  because  they  can- 
not come  to  a  resolution  as  to  whether  they  ought 
to  say  Goal  (sic)  or  Jayl.  Gaol  is  still  the  of- 
ficial form  of  the  word  in  England.  That  fact 
has  mainly  contributed  to  its  maintenance  in 
literature,  so  far  as  it  continues  to  be  used.  In 
the  United  States  jail  is  both  the  official  and 
the  literary  form.  But  the  spelling  gaol  has 
to  some  a  peculiar  attraction  of  its  own.  Not  a 
single  letter  in  it  save  the  final  /  is  of  use  in 
indicating  with  certainty  its  right  pronuncia- 
tion. In  truth,  the  orthography  almost  enforces 
a  wrong  one.  There  are  those  to  whom  this 
fact  is  the  highest  recommendation  it  can  have. 
The  second  word  has  varied  between  the 
spellings  gauge  and  gage  almost  from  its  very 
entrance  into  the  language  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. One  gets  the  impression  that  there  was  a 
time  when  the  latter  was  the  preferred  form. 
But  with  our  present  knowledge  no  statement 
of  this  sort  can  be  made  positively.  "You 
shall  not  gage  me  by  what  we  do  to-night," 
says  Gratiano  to  Bassanio  in  The  Merchant  of 
Venice.  Modern  editions,  in  defiance  of  the 
original,  print  gauge;  for  the  folio  and  both  the 
early  quartos  agree  in  having  gage.  Shake- 
speare's use  seems  to  be  nothing  but  another 
ii6 


SPELLING    REFORM 

illustration  of  his  perverse  preference  for  the  so- 
called  American  spelling,  or  the  American  pref- 
erence for  Shakespeare's  spelling,  just  as  one 
chooses  to  put  it.  Such  an  anomalous  form  as 
gauge  proved  at  times  too  much  for  the  tolerance 
of  the  orthographically  much-enduring  English- 
man. Even  him  it  has  struck  as  peculiarly 
objectionable.  So  in  the  eighteenth  century  he 
set  out  to  remove  this  particular  blot  upon  the 
speech.  But  as  he  was  in  nowise  tainted  with 
the  virus  of  reform,  he  exhibited  the  usual  in- 
curable aversion  to  having  the  spelling  bear 
any  relation  to  the  pronunciation.  Accordingly, 
he  refused  to  take  the  natural  as  well  as  time- 
honored  course  of  dropping  the  unnecessary 
and  misleading  u.  Instead,  he  reversed  the 
order  of  the  letters  of  the  digraph.  The  az^ 
became  ua. 

There  have  been  in  modern  times  men  who 
advocated  this  method  of  spelling  the  word  with 
all  that  fervor  of  faith  which  is  so  frequent  an 
accompaniment  of  limited  knowledge.  On  this 
point,  for  instance,  the  late  Grant  Allen  felt 
called  upon  to  bear  his  testimony.  He  was 
wont  to  make  his  novels  a  vehicle  for  conveying 
his  linguistic  views  as  well  as  those  pertaining 
to  religion,  society,  and  politics.  "Cynicus  re- 
pHed,  with  an  ugly  smile,"  he  wrote,  "that 
117 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

nobody  could  ever  guage  anybody  else's  nat- 
ure," *  Then,  with  what  might  fairly  be  called 
an  ugly  smile  of  his  own,  Allen  added  in  a 
parenthesis,  "not  gauge,  a  vile  dictionary  blun- 
der." There  was  no  apparent  reason  for  this 
lexical  outburst;  there  was  certainly  no  proof 
vouchsafed  of  the  justice  of  the  assertion.  As 
the  originals  of  the  word  were  the  Old  French 
noun  gauge  and  the  verb  gauger,  it  is  hard  to  see 
how  dictionaries  could  be  held  responsible  for 
blunders,  if  blunders  they  were,  which  foreigners 
had  perpetrated  centuries  before.  There  is,  in 
truth,  as  little  etymological  justification  for 
guage  as  there  is  phonetic  for  gauge.  Gage, 
if  it  were  not  the  most  common  way  of  spelling 
the  word  during  the  Elizabethan  period,  was 
certainly  a  common  one.  It  is  now,  on  the 
whole,  the  preferred  form  in  the  United  States. 
Except  in  the  nautical  term  weather-gage,  the  u 
is  very  generally  retained  in  England.  This  is 
doubtless  due  to  the  desire  of  gratifying  the 
ardent  enthusiasm  pervading  the  toiling  mil- 
lions of  Great  Britain  for  spellings  which  remind 
them  of  the  Old  French  originals,  from  which 
were  derived  the  words  they  employ. 

In  the  case  of  the  second  vowel,  the  short  e 

'  Duchess  of  Powysland,  chap.  x. 
ii8 


SPELLING    REFORM 

sound  is  properly  shown  in  a  large  number  of 
words  of  which  let,  felt,  bed  may  be  taken  as 
representatives.  These  are  all  phonetically 
spelled.  No  educated  man  who  saw  them  for 
the  first  time  would  have  any  hesitation  about 
their  pronunciation.  Such  a  condition  of  things 
tends  to  chasten  the  feelings  of  that  class  of 
persons,  not  inconsiderable  in  number,  who 
think  it  distinctively  to  the  credit  of  the  spelling 
that  it  should  get  as  far  away  from  the  pro- 
nunciation as  possible.  They  may  be  consoled, 
however,  by  the  fact  that  this  same  sound  is 
represented  by  a  in  any  and  many;  by  ea  in  a 
large  number  of  words,  such  as  health,  endeavor, 
weather;  by  at  in  said  and  again;  by  ay  in  says; 
by  ei  in  heifer  and  nonpareil,  and  by  eo  in 
jeopard  and  leopard.  There  are  those  who  give 
this  short  sound  to  leisure,  ryming  it  with 
pleasure,  as  did  Milton,^  instead  of  the  more 
common  long  sound  heard  with  us.  Indeed,  it 
is  noticeable  that  preference  is  given  to  the 
former  in  the  New  Historical  English  Dictionary, 
though  that  pronunciation  is  absolutely  ignored 
in  some  of  the  best  American  ones.  The  com- 
pilers of  these  last  may  have  been  touched  by 

'  And  add  to  these  retired  leisure 
That  in  trim  garden  takes  his  pleasure. 

— //  Penseroso. 

9  119 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Walker's  pathetic  plea  for  the  long  sound. 
''Leisure,"  he  wrote,  "is  sometimes  pronounced 
as  rhyming  with  pleasure;  but  in  my  opinion 
very  improperly ;  for  if  it  be  allowed  that  custom 
is  equally  divided,  we  ought,  in  this  case,  to 
pronounce  the  diphthong  long,  as  more  ex- 
pressive of  the  idea  annexed  to  it." 

Any  and  many  are  now  the  only  t\^-o  words 
where  a  has  the  sound  of  short  e.  At  one  time 
it  was  heard  in  others,  and  was  not  unfrequently 
so  represented  in  literature.  It  lingers,  too,  in 
some  instances,  and  even,  indeed,  flourishes  in 
spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  education  to  extirpate 
it.  The  present  authorized  pronunciation  of 
catch,  instead  of  ketch,  is  one  of  the  comparative- 
ly few  triumphs  gained  by  the  written  word 
over  the  spoken.  In  days  when  devotion  did 
not  exist  to  orthography  irrespective  of  the  pur- 
pose it  was  designed  to  fulfil,  the  a  assumed  the 
spelling  of  e  along  with  its  sound.  The  earlier 
cag,  for  illustration,  has  been  abandoned  for  the 
pure  phonetic  spelling  keg.  Apparently  no  seri- 
ous harm  has  befallen  the  language  in  conse- 
quence. Even  more  distant  from  the  remote 
Latin  original,  canalis,  denoting  the  home  of 
caww, 'the  dog,'  is  the  form  kennel.  This  turns 
its  back  upon  its  primitive,  and  contents  itself 
with  simply  representing  the  pronunciation.     So 

120 


SPELLING    REFORM 

much  are  we  the  creatures  of  habit  and  associa- 
tion in  the  matter  of  spelHng  that  the  most 
ardent  believer  in  the  doctrine  of  basing  orthog- 
raphy upon  derivation  could  in  neither  of  the 
cases  just  mentioned  be  persuaded  to  revert  to 
the  form  nearest  to  that  in  the  original  tongue. 
The  sound  to  which  we  give  the  name  of 
"long  e"  belongs  strictly,  as  has  been  pointed 
out,  to  i.  A  few  of  the  words  have  also  been 
given  in  which  it  still  continues  to  be  so  indi- 
cated.' There  are  certain  conditions  under 
which  it  is  represented  by  the  simple  letter  it- 
self. One  is  when  it  alone  constitutes  an  ac- 
cented syllable,  as  in  equal,  era,  ecliptic.  Another 
when  it  ends  a  monosyllable  or  an  accented 
syllable,  as  in  he,  be,  regal,  cohesion.  It  appears 
finally  with  a  good  deal  of  frequency  in  words 
in  which  the  sound  of  the  simple  vowel  is 
lengthened  by  the  artificial  device  of  an  ap- 
pended mute  e,  as  in  theme,  precede,  complete. 
This  last  word,  it  may  be  said  in  passing,  was 
once  often  spelled  compleat.  But  as  the  letter 
itself  represents  much  more  usually  the  short 
sound  of  the  vowel,  the  long  sound  has  come 
to  be  indicated  often  by  various  digraphs.  Of 
these,  two  are  particularly  prominent.     One  of 

'See  page  105 
121 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

them  is  ee,  seen  in  a  large  number  of  words,  such 
as  meet,  thee,  proceed.  The  second  digraph  is  ea, 
found  in  hean,  meat,  eagle,  and  a  host  of  others. 
But  the  sound  is  not  limited  to  these  two  com- 
binations. It  is  represented  by  ei  in  receive, 
conceit,  seize;  by  ie  in  believe,  chief,  fiend;  by 
ey  in  key;  by  eo  in  people;  by  ay  in  quay;  by 
(B  in  csgis,  p(san,  minutice;  and  several  other 
words  not  fully  naturalized. 

Once,  indeed,  this  last  method  of  indicating 
the  sound  was  far  more  common.  In  many 
instances  it  has  been  supplanted  by  the  simple 
e.  It  was  not  till  a  comparatively  late  period 
that  such  spellings  as  era  and  ether  drove  out  in 
great  measure  the  once  prevalent  oera  and 
cBther.  As  ce  has  with  us  strictly  but  one  sound, 
the  change  cannot,  from  all  points  of  view,  be 
deemed  an  improvement.  In  the  case  of  an 
unknown  word  first  brought  to  the  attention, 
no  one  could  now  be  positive,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, whether  the  vowel  should  be  treated  as 
long  or  short.  Take,  for  illustration,  encyclo- 
pedia, once  often  spelled  encyclopcrdia.  He  who 
sees  the  word  for  the  first  time  is  as  likely  to 
pronounce  the  antepenultimate  syllable  ped  as 
ped.  He  certainly  could  not  tell  from  the 
orthography  employed  how  this  particular 
syllable  should  be  sounded.    Still,  for  much  more 

122 


SPELLING    REFORM 

than  a  century  the  tendency  of  the  users  of  the 
language  has  been  steadily  directed  toward  the 
discarding  of  the  (b  in  all  cases.  As  long  ago 
as  1755  Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  dictionary,  recom- 
mended its  disuse.  "^S,"  he  wrote,  "is  some- 
times found  in  Latin  words  not  completely 
naturalized  or  assimilated,  but  is  by  no  means 
an  English  diphthong,  and  is  more  properly  ex- 
pressed by  single  e,  as  Cesar,  Eneas."  Dr. 
Johnson  was  hostile  to  spelling  reform;  but  he 
could  venture  to  sanction  a  spelling  of  these  two 
Latin  proper  names,  at  which  even  the  average 
spelling  reformer  would   shudder. 

Fortunately  for  those  of  us  who  believe  that 
spelling  exists  for  the  sake  of  indicating  pro- 
nunciation, the  sound  of  short  i,  one  of  the 
most  common  vowel  sounds  in  the  language, 
is  almost  always  represented  by  the  letter  it- 
self. The  exceptions  are  few,  comparatively 
speaking.  The  only  sign  to  take  its  place  in 
any  body  of  words  sufficiently  numerous  to  be 
entitled  a  class  is  y,  as  seen  in  syntax,  abyss, 
system,  and  other  words,  generally  of  Greek 
origin.  The  instances  where  different  signs  are 
employed  are  purely  sporadic.  Most  of  them, 
however,  are  for  various  reasons  remarkable. 
The  sound  is  represented  by  e  in  the  name  of 
the  language  we  speak  and  of  the  country  where 
123 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

it  came  into  being.  It  is  further  represented  by 
the  e  of  pretty,  by  the  o  of  women,  by  the  u  of 
busy  and  business,  by  the  ie  of  sieve,  and  by  the 
ui  of  guild  and  guilt  and  6m iW.  Once  in  the 
speech  of  most  men,  and  now  in  that  of  many, 
it  is  given  to  the  ee  of  been,  and  regularly  to  that 
combination  as  found  in  breeches. 

Gild  is  a  variant  spelling  of  guild,  and  repre- 
sents the  earlier  form.  The  ui  of  the  two  ad- 
ditional examples  given  ought  to  be  a  saddening 
spectacle  to  the  devout  believer  in  derivation  as 
the  basis  of  orthography.  The  original  form  of 
guilt  was  gylt.  vSo  it  remained  with  various 
spellings — of  which  gilt  was  naturally  the  most 
common — until  the  sixteenth  century.  But 
there  was  also  an  allied  form,  gult.  These  two 
undoubtedly  represented  distinct  and  easily 
recognizable  pronunciations  of  the  word.  They 
were  at  last  combined  so  as  to  create  a  spell- 
ing, of  the  pronunciation  of  which  no  one  could 
now  be  certain  until  he  was  told.  This  did  not 
take  place  on  any  scale  worth  mentioning  until 
the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  though 
the  combination  had  occasionally  been  seen 
much  earlier.  Essentially  the  same  thing  can 
be  said  of  build.  It  originally  appeared  in  vari- 
ous ways,  of  which  byld,  bild,  and  buld  were  the 
prominent  types.  At  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
124 


SPELLING    REFORM 

century  the  practice  began  of  recognizing  both 
forms  by  writing  build  or  buyld.  In  a  measure 
this  doubtless  represented  a  then  existing  shade 
of  pronunciation.  The  spelHng,  once  estabHshed, 
has  continued  since.  No  one  ever  thinks  of 
pronouncing  the  u;  perhaps  no  one  has  ever 
thought  of  it  since  the  combination  was  formed. 
Yet  there  is  no  question  that  intense  sorrow 
would  be  occasioned  to  a  certain  class  of  per- 
sons were  they  to  be  deprived  of  the  pleasure 
of  inserting  in  the  word  this  useless  and  now 
orthoepically  misleading  letter. 

The  so-called  "long  i"  ought  strictly  to  be 
treated  under  the  diphthongs;  but  as  it  is  popu- 
larly associated  in  the  minds  of  men  with  the 
simple  vowel,  its  diphthongal  sound  will  be  con- 
sidered at  this  point.  Its  most  usual  representa- 
tive is  the  letter  itself.  This  presents  little  diffi- 
culty in  the  pronunciation  if  the  words  end  with 
a  mute  e,  as  in  mine,  desire,  bite.  The  distinction 
between  thin  and  thine,  for  instance,  is  then 
easily  made.  But  when  it  comes  to  such  words 
as  mind,  child,  and  pint  on  the  one  hand,  and 
lift,  gild,  and  tint  on  the  other,  there  is  nothing 
in  the  spelling  to  indicate  with  certainty  how 
the  i  of  these  words  should  be  sounded.  As  no 
general  rule  can  be  laid  down,  the  pronun- 
ciation of  each  has  in  consequence  to  be  learned 
125 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

by  itself.  This  uncertainty  was  perhaps  one  of 
the  causes  which  led  to  the  transition  of  the 
diphthongal  sound  of  i  in  wind  to  the  short 
sound  wijtd,  which  so  aroused  the  wrath  of 
Dean  Swift.  But  besides  i  the  sound  is  also 
indicated  by  the  y  of  type,  ally,  thyme,  and  a 
number  of  words  derived  from  the  Greek; 
by  ie,  especially  in  monosyllables,  such  as  die, 
lie,  and  tie;  by  ye  in  the  noun  lye ;  by  ei  in  height 
and  sleight,  and  according  to  one  method  of 
pronunciation  in  either  and  neither.  It  is  further 
represented  by  the  ai  of  aisle,  by  the  ey  of  eye, 
and  by  the  uy  of  btty. 

The  third  vowel  now  demands  attention. 
Orthoepists  contend  that  there  is  no  genuine 
short  o  in  English  utterance.  Without  entering 
into  a  discussion  of  this  point,  it  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  the  two  sounds  of  the  letter,  which  are 
ordinarily  designated  as  short  and  long,  are 
represented  respectively  in  the  words  not  and 
note.  The  former  sound  remains  fairly  faithful 
to  this  vowel.  It  is  hardly  indicated  by  any 
other  sign.  The  a  of  what,  squad,  quarry  is  about 
the  only  one  to  take  its  place.  Very  different  is  it 
with  the  long  sound  heard  in  note.  This  is  far 
from  confining  itself  to  any  single  letter.  In  no 
small  number  of  words  it  is  represented  by  oa,  as 
in  boat,  groan,  coal;  by  oe,  as  in  foe,  toe,  hoe;  by 
126 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ou,  as  in  pour,  mould,  shoulder;  or  again  by 
ow,  as  seen  in  crow,  snow,  show.  Less  common, 
but  still  to  be  met  with,  is  this  sound  heard 
in  the  combination  ew,  as  seen  in  sew;  as  well 
as  in  shew  and  strew,  as  these  words  were  once 
regularly  and  are  now  occasionally  spelled; 
in  oo,  as  in  door  and  floor;  in  eau,  in  beau, 
bureau,  and  flambeau;  and  in  the  eo  of  yeo- 
man. 

This  last  word  was  once  spelled  at  times 
yoman  and  at  times  yeman.  These  forms 
doubtless  represented  the  two  ways  of  pro- 
nouncing it  that  existed.  The  Toxophilus  of 
Roger  Ascham,  for  illustration,  was  dedicated 
to  the  use  "of  the  gentlemen  and  yomen  of 
Englande."  But  the  sound  of  the  vowel  of  the 
first  syllable  wavered  for  a  long  period  between 
the  long  o  and  the  short  e.  Ben  Jonson,  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  observed 
of  the  word  that  "it  were  truer  written  ycman.'' 
In  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  Doc- 
tor Johnson  tells  us  that  the  eo  of  this  word 
"is  sounded  like  e  short."  This  was  the  view 
taken  by  perhaps  the  larger  number  of  orthoe- 
pists,  who  immediately  followed  him.  In  spite 
of  them  the  o  pronunciation  has  triumphed. 
It  has  shown,  however,  a  tender  consideration 
for  its  defeated  rival  by  allowing  it  to  lead  a 
127 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

useless  existence  in  the  syllable  in  which,  in 
the  utterance  of  many,  it  once  represented  the 
actual  sound. 

The  corresponding  short  and  long  sounds  of 
u  are  seen  in  the  words  full  and  rule.  But  o, 
either  singly,  or  in  combination  with  other 
letters,  is  a  favorite  way  of  indicating  both. 
The  short  sound  of  this  vowel,  which  is  far  from 
common,  is  represented  by  the  o  of  bosom, 
woman,  wolf;  by  the  oo  of  good,  foot,  stood;  by  the 
OH  of  could,  would,  should.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  corresponding  long  sound  is  also  represented 
by  the  o  of  move,  prove,  lose;  by  the  oe  of  shoe 
and  canoe;  by  the  oo  of  too,  root,  fool;  by  ou  in 
such  words  as  uncouth,  routine,  youth,  and  a 
number  of  others  derived  generally  from  the 
French.  There  has  been  and  still  is  something 
of  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  users  of  lan- 
guage to  change  the  long  sound  of  oo  into  its 
short  one.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  in  his  poem 
of  Urania,  represents  Learning  as  giving  a  lesson 
on  propriety  of  pronunciation.  Among  other 
points  considered,  occurred  the  following  ob- 
servations : 

She  pardoned  one,  our  classic  city's  boast. 
That  said  at  Cambridge  most  instead  of  most. 
But  knit  her  brows  and  stamped  her  angry  foot 
To  hear  a  Teacher  call  a  root  a  root. 
128 


SPELLING    REFORM 

This  is  perhaps  as  good  an  example  as  can 
be  furnished  of  the  waste  of  thne  and  labor  im- 
posed by  our  present  orthography  in  mastering 
distinctions  of  sounds  in  words  when  there  is 
nothing  in  the  sign  employed  to  indicate  which 
one  is  proper.  To  men  not  given  up  to  slavish 
admiration  of  our  present  spelling,  it  would 
seem  that  Learning,  instead  of  stamping  her 
foot,  would  have  been  much  more  sensibly  en- 
gaged in  using  her  head  to  devise  some  method 
by  which  one  and  the  same  combination  of 
letters  should  not  be  called  upon  to  represent 
two  distinct  sounds  in  words  so  closely  allied 
in  form  as  foot  and  root;  or  distinct  sounds  in 
words  with  the  same  ending  as  toe  and  the  shoe 
that  covers  it. 

Another  way  of  indicating  the  long  sound  of 
this  vowel  is  either  by  the  simple  letter  itself  or 
by  it  in  combination  with  other  letters.  For 
instance,  it  is  represented  by  ue  in  such  words  as 
true,  avenue,  pursue;  by  ui  in  fruit,  bruise, 
pursuit;  by  eu  in  neuter,  deuce,  pentateuch;  by 
ew  in  brew,  sewer,  lewd;  and  by  ieu  in  adieu, 
lieu,  purlieu.  But  there  is  a  peculiarity  in  the 
words  containing  this  vowel,  the  consideration 
of  which  involves  too  much  space  to  have  little 
more  than  a  reference  here.  We  all  recognize 
the  difference  of  the  sound  of  u  as  heard  re- 
129 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

spectively  in  fortune  and  fortuitous,  in  annual 
and  annuity,  in  volume  and  voluminous,  in  pen- 
ury and  penurious.  In  the  first  one  of  each  of 
these  pairs  of  words  a  j'-element  is  introduced 
into  the  pronunciation;  in  the  second  the  u  has 
its  absolutely  pure  long  sound.  Nor  is  this  in- 
troduction of  the  3^-element  limited  to  the  letter 
when  used  alone.  We  can  find  it  exemplified 
in  the  ue  of  statue,  value,  tissue;  in  the  eu  of 
eulogy,  euphony,  Europe;  in  the  ew  of  ewe,  hew, 
few.  This  iotization,  as  it  is  called,  is  especially 
prevalent  in  words  with  the  termination  ture, 
as  nature,  furniture,  sculpture,  and  agriculture. 
Now  and  then  some  one  is  heard  giving,  or  at- 
tempting to  give,  to  the  u  of  this  ending  the  pure 
sound;  but  such  persons  are  usually  regarded  as 
possessed  of  "cultoor"  and  not  culture. 

The  only  word  of  this  special  class  in  which 
such  a  method  of  pronunciation  can  be  said  to 
have  attained  any  recognition  whatever  is 
literature.  The  word  itself  is  an  old  one  in  our 
speech.  Once,  however,  it  meant  merely  knowl- 
edge of  literature.  It  did  not  mean  that  body 
of  writings  which  constitute  the  production  of 
a  country  or  of  a  period.  This  sense  of  it,  now 
the  most  common,  is  comparatively  modern. 
The  earliest  instance  I  have  chanced  to  meet  of 
it — though  it  was  doubtless  used  a  good  deal 
130 


SPELLING    REFORM 

earlier — is  in  the  correspondence  of  Southey  and 
William  Taylor  of  Norwich.  There  it  occurs  in 
a  letter  belonging  to  the  year  1803,  in  which 
Southey  tells  his  friend  that  he  was  expecting 
to  undertake  the  editorship  of  a  work  dealing 
biographically  and  critically  with  "  the  history 
of  English  literature."  *  Still,  the  pronunciation 
just  mentioned  of  this  word,  differing  as  it  does 
from  the  others  of  the  same  class,  must  even 
then  have  been  occasionally  heard.  It  was  cer- 
tainly made  the  subject  of  comment  by  Byron. 
He  somewhere  speaks — I  have  mislaid  the  refer- 
ence— of  a  publisher  who  was  in  the  habit  of 
talking  about  litcratoor.  This  peculiar  pro- 
nunciation still  comes  at  times  from  the  lips  of 
educated  men. 

But  the  regular  long  and  short  sounds  of  u 
yield  in  frequency  of  occurrence  to  that  sound 
of  it  heard  in  but  and  burn.  In  common  speech 
this  has  usurped  with  us  the  title  of  "short  u/' 
By  orthoepists  it  itself  is  divided  into  a  long  and 
a  short  sound,  according  as  it  is  or  is  not  fol- 
lowed by  an  r.  Into  it,  as  has  been  pointed 
out,  the  pronunciation  of  all  unaccented  sylla- 
bles tends  to  run.     Hence,  in  the  case  of  these, 

'  Memoir  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  the  late  William 
Taylor  of  Norwich.  London,  1843.  Southey  to  Taylor, 
July  13,  1803,  vol.  i,  p.  466. 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

there  has  come  to  exist  the  greatest  possible 
variety  of  signs  by  which  it  is  indicated.  But 
even  in  the  accented  syllables  there  is  a  sufficient 
number  of  different  ones  to  arrest  the  atten- 
tion. Naturally  the  most  usual  representative 
of  it  is  the  vowel  from  which  it  has  taken  its 
name.  But  it  is  far  from  being  limited  to  this 
sign.  Its  short  sound  is  further  represented  by 
the  o  of  such  words  as  love,  dove,  and  son;  simi- 
larly by  the  on  of  double,  touch,  and  young;  and 
by  the  oo  of  blood  and  flood.  In  vulgar  speech 
soot  would  have  to  be  added  to  the  last  two. 
Furthermore,  it  is  represented  by  the  sporadic 
example  of  the  oe  of  does.  The  long  sound  runs 
through  a  still  wider  range  of  examples.  Words 
containing  it  but  denoted  by  various  signs  could 
be  given  by  the  score.  It  is  represented  by  all 
the  vowels  except  the  first.  The  e  of  her,  were, 
fern,  stands  for  it.  So  does  the  i  of  fir,  bird, 
virgin.  So  does  the  o  of  work,  ivorship,  worth. 
It  is  likewise  largely  represented  by  ea  in  such 
words  as  heard,  learn,  search;  by  on  in  scourge, 
journal,  flourish,  and  no  small  number  of  others 
containing  this  particular  sign.  In  the  single 
instance  of  tierce  the  sound  is  denoted  also  by 
ie.  Were  its  use  in  unaccented  syllables  in- 
dicated, this  list  of  signs  would  be  largely  ex- 
tended. As  it  is,  it  will  be  seen  that  nine  is  the 
132 


SPELLING    REFORM 

number     employed     in     accented     syllables     to 
represent  it. 

So  much  for  the  simple  vowels.  We  come  now 
to  the  three  diphthongs.  The  first  of  these, 
which  is  made  up  of  the  sound  of  the  a  of  jather 
and  that  of  the  e  of  they,  has  already  been  con- 
sidered in  treating  what  is  called  "long  i." 
Eight  signs  were  given  by  which  it  was  denoted.* 
This  wealth  of  representation  does  not  belong 
to  the  two  other  diphthongs.  There  are  but 
two  signs  by  which  the  sound  of  the  second  is 
indicated.  These  are  the  ou  of  south,  found, 
about,  and  the  ow  of  noiv,  town,  vowel.  The  third 
diphthong  again  has  but  two  signs,  the  oi  of 
boil,  point,  spoil,  and  the  oy  of  boy,  joy,  destroy. 
Many  of  the  words  in  which  oi  appears  had  once 
the  pronunciation  of  the  first  mentioned  diph- 
thong. To  the  truth  of  this  both  the  rymes 
of  the  poets  and  the  assertions  of  the  early 
orthoepists  bear  ample  testimony.  The  state- 
ment is  still  further  confirmed  by  the  fact  that 
the  sound  still  lingers,  or,  rather,  is  prevalent,  in 
the  speech  of  the  uneducated,  the  great  con- 
servators of  past  usage.  The  words  given  above 
as  illustrative  of  this  sign  of  the  diphthong 
would   have   been   pronounced   by   our   fathers 

'See  page  125 
133 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

bile,  pint,  spile.  So  they  are  still  pronounced 
by  the  illiterate.  In  one  word,  indeed,  this 
sound  has  not  passed  entirely  from  the  col- 
loquial speech  of  the  cultivated  either  in  Eng- 
land or  America.  Roil  is  not  merely  heard  as 
rile,  but  is  not  unfrequently  found  so  printed. 


IV 

THE    DICxRAPHS 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  been  engaged  in 
making  manifest  the  numerous  different  ways 
in  which  the  same  vowel- sound  is  represented 
in  our  present  orthography.  Necessarily  a  re- 
versal of  the  process  would  present  an  equally 
impressive  showing,  for  examples  just  as  im- 
pressive would  make  manifest  how  the  sam^e 
sign  adds  to  the  further  confusion  of  English 
spelling  by  denoting  a  number  of  different  vowel- 
sounds.  But  there  is  a  limit  to  the  endurance 
of  the  reader,  to  say  nothing  of  that  of  the 
writer.  Furthermore,  there  is  little  need  of 
this  addition  in  the  case  of  the  vowels.  The 
facts  about  to  be  furnished  will  be  more  than 
sufficient  to  satisfy  any  demand  for  illustra- 
tions of  the  extent  to  which  the  same  sign  has 
been  made  to  indicate  a  wide  variety  of  differ- 
134 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ent  sounds,  though  in  the  sporadic  instances  the 
examples  already  given  must  be  repeated.  For 
we  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  those  com- 
binations of  letters,  numerous  in  English  spelling, 
to  which  has  been  given  the  name  of  digraphs. 
They  are  sometimes  made  up  of  a  union  of  vow- 
els, sometimes  of  a  union  of  a  vowel  and  a  conso- 
nant, sometimes  of  a  union  of  two  consonants. 

I  have  already  adverted  to  the  fact  that  had 
there  been  any  system  established  in  the  em- 
ployment of  these  combinations  of  letters,  and 
had  each  of  them  been  made  to  represent  un- 
varyingly one  particular  sound,  some  of  the 
worst  evils  of  English  orthography  would  have 
been  largely  mitigated,  and  in  certain  cases  en- 
tirely relieved.  But  this  was  not  to  be.  The 
opportunity  of  bringing  about  regularity  of 
usage  in  the  employment  of  these  signs  was 
either  not  seen,  or  if  seen  was  not  improved. 
The  same  variableness,  the  same  irregularity, 
the  same  lawlessness  which  existed  in  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  sounds  of  the  vowels  and  diph- 
thongs came  to  exist  in  the  case  of  the  digraphs 
also.  They  consequently  did  little  more  than 
add  to  the  confusion  prevailing  in  English  or- 
thography, and  became  as  valueless  for  indicat- 
ing pronunciation  as  are  the  single  letters  of 
which  they  are  composed. 
135 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

To  this  sweeping  statement  there  are  two 
partial  exceptions.  The  first  is  aw.  This  is 
one  of  several  representatives  of  the  so-called 
broad  sound  of  a  heard  in  ball  and  fall.  When- 
ever that  digraph  appears,  its  pronunciation  is 
invariably  the  same.  No  such  absolute  asser- 
tion can  be  made  of  the  digraph  which  repre- 
sents the  sound  of  "long  ^."  This  is  the  com- 
bination ee.  There  are  but  two  exceptions  in 
common  use  to  the  pronunciation  of  it  just 
given.  The  first  is  the  word  breeches.  Its  sin- 
gular has  the  regular  sound.  The  pronuncia- 
tion as  short  i  in  the  plural — used,  too,  there  in 
a  special  sense — may  perhaps  be  due  to  an  ex- 
tension to  this  form  of  that  tendency,  so  preva- 
lent in  English  speech,  on  the  part  of  the  deriva- 
tive, to  shorten  the  vowel  of  the  primitive.  The 
other  is  the  participle  beoi  of  the  substantive 
verb.  In  usage  the  pronunciation  of  this  word 
has  long  wavered  and  still  wavers  between  the 
sounds  heard  respectively  in  sin  and  seeii.  Of 
this  variation  there  will  be  occasion  to  speak 
later  in  detail. 

These  exceptions,  however,  affect  but  a 
limited  number  of  words.  They  are  hardly 
worth  considering  when  their  regularity  is  put 
in  contrast  with  the  irregularities  of  the  other 
combinations.  Let  us  begin  with  the  digraph 
136 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ai.  Ordinarily  it  has  the  sound  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  call  "long  a,"  as  can  be  seen  in  fail, 
rain,  and  paid.  In  pair,  fair,  hair  it  has  an- 
other sound.  In  said,  again,  against  it  has  the 
sound  of  short  e.  In  aisle  it  has  the  diphthongal 
sound  called  by  us  "long  i."  This  word  fur- 
nishes an  interesting  illustration  of  the  way  in 
which  much  of  our  highly  prized  orthography 
came  t6  have  a  being.  Its  present  spelling  is 
comparatively  recent.  Doctor  Johnson  recog- 
nized in  it  the  lack  of  conformity  to  any  possible 
derivation.  He  adopted  it  on  the  authority  of 
Addison,  though  with  manifest  misgiving.  He 
thought  it  ought  to  be  written  aile,  but  in  defer- 
ence to  this  author  he  inserted  it  in  his  dic- 
tionary as  aisle. 

"Thus,"  he  said,  "the  word  is  written  by 
Addison,  but  perhaps  improperly,"^  Johnson's 
action  was  followed  without  thought  and  with- 
out hesitation  by  his  successors.  There  is  no 
question,  indeed,  as  to  the  impropriety  of  the 
present  spelling  from  the  point  of  view  of  both 
derivation  and  pronunciation.  Equally  there 
is  no  doubt  as  to  the  impropriety  of  its  meaning 
from  the  former  point  of  view.     It   came  re- 

'  "The  church  is  one  huge  nef  with  a  double  Aisle  to 
it." — Addison,  Remarks  on  Several  Parts  of  Italy,  etc. 
First  edition,   1705,  p.   493. 

137 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

motely  from  the  Latin  ala,  'a  wing.'  There- 
fore, it  means  really  the  wing  part  of  the  church 
on  each  side  of  the  nave.  In  this  sense  it  is 
still  employed.  But  since  the  first  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century  it  has  been  made  to  denote 
also  the  passage  between  rows  of  seats.  Strictly 
speaking,  this  is  a  particularly  gross  corruption, 
though,  like  so  many  in  our  speech,  it  has  now 
been  sanctioned  by  good  usage.  The  proper 
word  to  indicate  such  a  sense  was  alley,  cor- 
responding to  the  French  allee,  'a  passage.' 
This  was  once  common  and  is  still  used  in  the 
North  of  England.  Aisle  itself  was  formerly 
spelled  He  or  yle.  Confusing  it  with  isle,  origi- 
nally spelled  He,  men  inserted  an  5  about  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  Later  an  a  was 
prefixed  under  the  influence  of  the  French  aile. 
It  was  thus  that  this  linguistic  monster,  defying 
any  correct  orthography  or  orthoepy,  was  cre- 
ated. In  any  sense  of  it  the  5  is  an  unjustifiable 
intrusion,  representing  as  the  word  does  in  one 
signification  the  Latin  ala, '  a  wing,'  and  in  the 
other  the  French  allee,  'a  passage.' 

There  is  another  word  containing  this  digraph 
which  illustrates  vividly  the  uncertainty  of 
sound  caused  by  the  present  spelling.  This  is 
plait,  both  as  verb  and  substantive.  About  its 
pronunciation  usage  has  long  been  conflicting. 
i.s8 


SPELLING    REFORM 

"Plait,  a  fold  of  cloth,  is  regular,  and  ought  to 
be  pronounced  like  plate,  a  dish,"  said  Walker, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
"  Pronouncing  it  so  as  to  rhyme  with  meat,"  he 
added,  "  is  a  vulgarism,  and  ought  to  be  avoided." 
So  say  several  later  English  dictionaries.  So 
say  the  leading  American  ones.  Webster,  in- 
deed, concedes  that  the  pronunciation  de- 
nounced by  Walker  is  colloquially  possible.  It 
therefore  does  not  necessarily  relegate  the  user 
of  it  to  the  ranks  of  the  vulgar.  Now  comes 
the  New  Historical  English  Dictionary,  and 
gives  the  word  not  merely  three  distinct  pro- 
nunciations, but  holds  up  as  only  really  proper 
that  which  has  failed  to  gain  the  favor  of  most 
lexicographers.  It  is  the  one  found  "in  living 
English  use,"  it  says,  when  the  word  has  the 
sense  of  'fold.'  Further  we  are  assured  that 
with  this  signification  it  is  ordinarily  written 
pleat.  This  would  tend  to  justify  still  more  the 
ryme  with  meat,  which  so  shocked  Walker.  Then 
in  its  second  sense  of  a  '  braid  of  hair  or  straw' 
we  are  told  that  it  has  the  sound  of  a  in  mat. 
This  leaves  the  pronunciation  of  plait  to  ryme 
with  plate  hardly  any  support  to  stand  on.  It 
has  merely  the  distinction  of  being  mentioned 
first ;  but  it  is  denied  a  real  e.xistence  as  a  spoken 
word.  Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the  un- 
139 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

limited  possibilities  opened  by  our  present 
orthography  for  discussions  of  propriety  of 
pronunciation  about  which  certainty  can  never 
be  assured.  All  statements  about  general  usage, 
no  matter  from  what  source  coming,  must  neces- 
sarily be  received  with  a  good  many  grains  of 
allowance,  if  not  with  a  fair  proportion  of  grains 
of  distrust — at  least,  whenever  our  orthoepic 
doctors  disagree.  Do  the  best  the  most  con- 
scientious investigator  can,  he  can  never  make 
himself  familiar  with  the  practice  of  but  a  limit- 
ed number  of  educated  men  who  have  a  right 
to  be  consulted.  His  conclusions,  therefore, 
must  always  rest  upon  a  more  or  less  imperfect 
collection  of  facts. 

The  digraph  ay  is  naturally  subject  to  the 
same  influences  as  ai.  It  is,  however,  much 
less  used  save  at  the  end  of  words.  Grief  has, 
indeed,  been  felt  and  expressed,  even  by  devout 
worshippers  of  our  present  orthography,  at  the 
arbitrary  change  of  signs  made  in  the  inflection 
of  certain  verbs,  like  lay,  pay,  say.  These,  with- 
out any  apparent  reason  for  so  doing,  pass  from 
the  digraph  ay  in  the  present  to  ai  in  the  pret- 
erite. Naturally  there  is  no  objectionable  uni- 
formity in  the  practice.  That  might  tend  to 
render  slightly  easier  the  acquisition  of  our 
spelling.  Accordingly,  lay  and  pay  and  say 
140 


SPELLING    REFORM 

have  in  the  past  tense  laid,  paid,  and  said, 
while  verbs  with  the  same  termination,  such  as 
play,  pray,  delay,  have  in  this  same  past  tense 
the  forms  played  and  prayed  and  delayed.  Stay 
uses  impartially  staid  and  stayed'.  Much  dis- 
satisfaction has  been  expressed  at  the  "wanton 
departure  from  analogy,"  as  it  has  been  called, 
which  has  been  manifested  by  the  words  of 
the  first  list  given.  As  the  characteristic  of 
our  spelling  everywhere  is  a  wanton  departure 
from  analogy,  it  hardly  seems  worth  while 
to  find  fault  with  this  particular  exhibition 
of  it. 

In  quay  the  digraph  has  the  entirely  distinct 
sound  of  "long  e."  Of  this  word  it  may  be 
added  that  the  spelling  is  modern  while  the 
pronunciation  is  ancient.  Originally  it  ap- 
peared as  key  or  kay — of  course,  with  the  usual 
orthographic  variations.  In  the  earlier  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  under  the  influence 
of  the  French  quai,  the  present  form  of  the  word 
came  in;  toward  the  end  of  the  century  it  had 
become  the  prevailing  form.  This  gave  the 
lexicographer,  Walker,  an  opportunity  to  dis- 
play his  hostility  to  any  sort  of  spelling  which 
should  engage  in  the  reprehensible  task  of  aim- 
ing to  indicate  pronunciation.  Such  a  proceed- 
ing was  in  his  eyes  a  radically  vicious  course  of 
141 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

action.  In  the  entire  ignorance  of  the  original 
form  of  the  word  he  remarked  that  it  "is  now 
sometimes  seen  written  key;  for  if  we  cannot 
bring  the  pronunciation  to  the  spelHng,  it  is 
looked  upon  as  some  improvement  to  bring  the 
spelling  to  the  pronunciation — a  most  pernicious 
practice  in  language." 

Key,  as  the  spelling  suggests,  had  originally 
the  sound  of  ey  in  they  and  obey;  later  it  passed 
into  the  sound  of  "long  e."  This  it  has  trans- 
mitted to  its  supplanter.  In  the  scarcity  of 
rymes  in  our  tongue,  it  is  always  a  little  venture- 
some to  infer  from  the  evidence  of  verse  the 
past  pronunciation  of  words  which  have  with 
us  the  same  termination,  but  different  sounds. 
This  imparts  a  little  uncertainty  to  the  treat- 
ment of  quay  in  two  passages  containing  the  word 
which  are  given  by  the  New  Historical  Dictionary. 

But  now  arrives  the  dismal  day 
She  must  return  to  Ormond-quay, 

says  Swift  in  his  poem  of  Stella  at  Wood-Park. 
Does  the  ryme  here  represent  an  attempt 
to  conform  the  pronunciation  to  the  spelling? 
More  likely  it  represents  the  survival  of  a  pro- 
nunciation once  more  or  less  prevalent.  The 
second  extract  from  In  Mcmoriam  is  under  the 
circumstances  more  striking: 
142 


SPELLING    REFORM 

If  one  should  bring  me  the  report 

That  thou  hadst  touched  the  land  to-day, 
And  I  went  down  unto  the  quay, 

And  found  thee  lying  in  the  port. 

It  certainly  looks  as  if  in  this  passage  Tennyson 
had  set  out  to  make  the  pronunciation  conform 
to  the  spelling. 

Our  next  digraph  is  ea.  This  has  a  choice 
variety  of  sounds  to  represent.  Most  common- 
ly it  receives  the  pronunciation  of  "long  e." 
Of  the  scores  of  examples  containing  it,  beast, 
hear,  and  deal  may  be  taken  as  specimens.  But 
while  this  is  its  most  frequent  sound,  it  is  far 
from  being  the  only  one.  Its  most  important 
rival  is  that  of  short  e,  which  can  be  found  in 
no  small  number  of  words  like  breath,  breast, 
weather.  In  these  and  all  other  like  cases  the 
second  vowel  is  absolutely  superfluous  as  re- 
gards pronunciation.  The  unnecessary  letter 
is  in  some  instances  due  to  derivation ;  in  others 
it  exists  in  defiance  of  it — as,  for  instance,  in 
feather  and  endeavor.  Its  insertion  was  doubt- 
less due  to  an  attempt  to  represent  a  sound 
which  is  no  longer  heard  in  these  words.  In  a 
large  number  of  instances  they  were  once  spelled 
without  the  now  unpronounced  letter. 

Common  also  is  a  third  sound  of  this  digraph 
— the  one  we  call  "short  u."  It  is  heard  in 
143 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

heard  itself,  in  carlJi,  in  early,  in  leani,  in  search, 
and  in  a  number  of  other  words  in  which  ea  is 
followed  by  r.  There  is  a  fourth  sound  of  it 
which  may  be  represented  b}'  bear,  swear,  tear. 
A  fifth  sound  of  it  occurs  in  the  words  heart, 
hearth,  and  hearken.  Again,  a  sixth  sound  of  it 
is  represented  by  such  words  as  great,  break, 
steak.  In  all  these  cases  it  will  be  observed 
that  certain  of  these  words  have  in  the  course 
of  their  history  tended  to  pass  from  one  pro- 
nunciation of  the  digraph  into  another.  Some- 
times they  have  for  a  long  time  wavered  be- 
tween the  two.  Hearth,  which  contains  the 
fifth  sound  just  assigned  to  the  combination, 
was  often  made  to  ryme  with  words  containing 
the  third  sound,  represented  by  earth.  Accord- 
ing to  the  New  Historical  Dictionary,  this  is 
true  now  of  Scotland,  and  of  the  Northern  Eng- 
lish dialect.  It  is  true  also  of  certain  parts 
of  the  United  States,  or,  at  any  rate,  of  certain 
persons.  It  seems  also  to  have  been  the  pro- 
nunciation of  Milton. 

Far  from  all  resort  of  mirth 
Save  the  cricket  on  the  hearth 

are  lines  found  in  //  Penseroso.     So  also  great 

once  had  often  the  first  sound  here  given  to  the 

digraph,  as  if  it  were  spelled  greet.     Both  this 

144 


SPELLING    REFORM 

sound  as  well  as  the  one  it  now  receives  were 
so  equally  authorized  in  the  eighteenth  century 
that  Dr.  Johnson  triumphantly  cited  the  fact 
as  a  convincing  proof  of  the  impossibility  of 
making  a  satisfactory  pronouncing  dictionary, 
just  as  we  are  now  told  that  we  cannot  have 
a  phonetic  orthography  because  men  pronounce 
the  same  word  in  different  ways. 

The  digraph  ee  having  already  been  considered, 
we  pass  on  to  ei.  Its  most  frequent  sound  is 
that  heard  in  such  words  as  rein,  veil,  and  neigh- 
bor. But  it  has  also  the  sound  of  "long  6""  in 
conceit,  seize,  ceiling,  and  a  few  others.  In  heir 
and  heiress  and  their  it  has  the  sound  of  a  in 
fare.  In  height  and  sleight  it  has  the  sound  of 
"long  i."  In  heifer  and  nonpareil  it  has  the 
sound  of  short  e.  The  allied  digraph  ey  has  no 
such  range  of  sounds.  In  accented  syllables  it 
represents  only  the  first  one  given  to  ei,  as  can 
be  seen  in  they,  grey,  and  survey.  Key,  with  the 
sound  of  "long  ^,"  seems  to  be  the  solitary 
exception. 

It  is  already  plainly  apparent  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  character  of  our  present  spelling 
to  fit  it  to  serve  as  a  guide  to  pronunciation, 
the  very  office  for  which  spelling  was  created. 
But  its  worthlessness  in  this  respect,  with  the 
consequent  uncertainty  and  anxiety  attending 
145 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

the  use  of  it,  forms  in  the  case  of  two  words 
containing  the  digraph  ei,  one  of  the  most 
amusing  episodes  in  the  history  of  English 
orthoepy.  In  modern  times  their  pronuncia- 
tion has  given  rise  to  controversy  and  heart- 
burnings as  bitter  as  the  matter  itself  is  unim- 
portant. These  words  are  either  and  neither. 
Were  they  to  adopt  the  most  common  pro- 
nunciation of  the  digraph  they  would  have  the 
sound  heard  in  such  words  as  eight,  vein,  and 
feint.  This,  in  truth,  they  once  had.  To  indi- 
cate that  fact  they  have  occasionally  been  writ- 
ten ayther  and  nayther.  But  this  pronunciation, 
outside  of  Ireland  at  least,  had  largely  disap- 
peared by  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. So  far  as  many  orthoepists  were  con- 
cerned, it  was  ignored  entirely.  Those  who 
mentioned  it  often  accorded  it  scant  favor. 
The  affections  of  lexicographers  were  long  di- 
vided between  the  sounds  heard  in  receive  and 
deceit,  and  that  heard  in  height  and  sleight.  For 
the  former  there  was  a  very  marked  preference. 
Most  of  them  did  not  even  admit  the  existence 
of  the  "long  i"  sound;  those  who  did,  gave  it 
generally  a  grudging  recognition.  The  various 
pronunciations  prevailing  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  eighteenth  centur}'-  were  specified  by  Nares 
in  his  Elements  of  Orthoepy.  ''Either  and 
146 


SPELLING    REFORM 

neither,"  he  wrote,  "are  spoken  by  some  with 
the  sound  of  long  i.  I  have  heard  even  that  of 
long  a  given  to  them;  but  as  the  regular  way 
is  also  in  use,  I  think  it  is  preferable.  These 
differences  seem  to  have  arisen  from  ignorance 
of  the  regular  sound  of  ei."  As  the  regular 
sound  of  ei,  if  any  one  of  them  is  entitled 
to  that  designation,  is  heard  in  such  words 
as  skein  and  freight,  one  gets  the  impression 
that  Nares  himself  was  ignorant  of  what  it 
was. 

Walker,  the  orthoepic  lawgiver  of  our  fathers, 
distinctly  preferred  the  "long  e"  sound  of  either 
and  neither.  Both  the  practice  of  Garrick  and 
analogy  led  him  to  maintain  that  they  should 
be  pronounced  as  if  ryniing  "with  breather, 
one  who  breathes."  He  was  compelled,  how- 
ever, to  admit  that  the  "long  i"  sound  was 
heard  so  frequently  that  it  was  hardly  possible 
in  insist  exclusively  upon  the  other.  He  did 
the  best  he  could,  nevertheless,  to  ignore  it  and 
thereby  banish  it.  While  in  the  introduction 
to  his  dictionary  he  recognized  the  existence 
of  both  sounds,  in  the  body  of  his  work  that  of 
"long  e"  was  the  only  one  given.  In  this 
course  he  was  followed  by  his  reviser.  Smart, 
who  succeeded  to  his  name,  and  up  to  a  certain 
degree  to  his  authority.  Smart  went  even 
147 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

further  than  his  predecessor.  He  was  apparent- 
ly ignorant  of  the  fact — he  certainly  ignored  it 
— that  any  other  pronunciation  of  these  words 
than  that  of  "long  e"  was  known  to  the  Eng- 
lish people.  But  in  spite  of  its  defiance  of 
analogy  and  of  the  hostility  of  lexicographers, 
the  sound  of  "long  i"  continued  to  make  its 
way.  The  fact  has  sometimes  excited  the  in- 
dignation of  orthoepists.  Yet  it  is  hard  to 
understand  how  any  one  who  cherishes  the 
vagaries  of  English  spelling  should  get  into  a 
state  of  excitement  about  the  vagaries  of  its 
pronunciation. 

Neither  the  digraph  eo  nor  en  is  found  often. 
The  first,  however,  improves  fully  the  oppor- 
tunity presented  of  making  it  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  for  the  learner  to  get  any  idea  of 
the  pronunciation  from  the  spelling.  In  people 
it  has  the  sound  of  "long  ^";  in  leopard  and 
jeopard  it  has  the  sound  of  short  e.  In  yeoman 
again  it  has  the  sound  of  long  o.  Eu  has  prac- 
tically the  same  sound  as  ew,  as  can  be  exem- 
plified in  jeud  and  jew.  This  last  digraph,  how- 
ever, represents  the  long  sound  of  u  as  well  as 
that  in  which  iotization  precedes  the  vowel. 
The  difference  in  the  pronunciation  of  drew  and 
dew  will  make  manifest  the  contrast.  There  is 
always  a  tendency,  however,  for  the  digraph  to 


SPELLING    REFORM 

pass  from  the  latter  sound  to  tlic  former  in  a 
tongue  in  which  there  is  nothing  in  the  orthog- 
raphy to  fix  a  precise  value  upon  the  sign  in- 
dicating both.  "According  to  my  v'oo,"  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  in  his  Elsie  Venner,  has  one  of 
his  characters  saying.  "  The  unspeakable  pro- 
nunciation of  this  word,"  he  adds  in  a  parenthesis, 
"  is  the  touchstone  of  New  England  Brahmin- 
ism."  In  another  place  in  the  same  novel  he 
still  further  enforces  this  point.  "The  Doctor," 
he  wrote,  among  his  other  recommendations  to 
the  hero,  says  to  him,  "  you  can  pronounce  the 
word  view.'"  And  yet  in  it  the  iotization  is 
plainly  indicated  by  the  vowel  itself,  while  in 
such  words  as  hew  and  jew  and  new  there  is 
nothing  to  fix  definitely  the  sound.  Finally,  it 
remains  to  say  of  this  digraph  that  shew  and 
strew,  two  verbs  once  spelled  with  it,  have  now 
become  show  and  strow,  a  form  more  in  accord- 
ance with  their  pronunciation.  There  is  no 
particular  reason  why  sew  should  not  follow 
their  example  in  substituting  an  o  for  an  e. 

The  digraph  ie  is  represented  but  by  three 
vowel  sounds.  The  most  common  one  is  that 
of  "long  e" — seen,  for  example,  in  chief,  grieve, 
believe.  But  the  sound  of  "long  i"  is  heard  in 
no  small  number  of  words,  especially  mono- 
syllabic words  ending  in  ie,  such  as  lie,  die,  tie. 
149 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

In  one  instance  it  has  the  sound  of  short  e. 
Accordingly,  in  it  the  first  vowel  is  distinctly 
superfluous.  This  is  the  word  friend.  Its 
Anglo-Saxon  original  is  freond,  just  as  that  of 
fiend  is  feond  or  fidnd.  One  of  the  small  jokes 
of  the  opponents  of  spelling  reform  is  a  pro- 
fessed unwillingness  "to  knock  the  eye  out  of 
a  friend."  Disparaging  remarks  have  been 
made  about  this  as  an  argument — as  it  seems 
to  me,  with  no  justification.  Compared  with 
most  of  the  objections  brought  against  the 
efforts  to  wash  the  dirty  face  of  our  orthography 
and  make  it  decently  presentable,  this  particular 
argument  against  dropping  the  i  out  of  friend 
is,  as  I  look  at  it,  the  strongest  that  has  been 
or  can  be  adduced.  It  reminds  one,  indeed,  of 
the  objection  the  French  writer  made  to  the 
.  dropping  of  the  h  out  of  rhinoceros.  The  animal 
would  lose  his  horn  and  become  nothing  more 
than  a  sheep. 

As  a  matter  of  linguistic  history,  however,  it 
was  not  until  late  in  the  sixteenth  century  that 
the  i,  though  found  long  before,  appeared  in 
the  word  friend  to  an  extent  worth  consider- 
ing. There  were  several  ways  in  which  it  had 
been  spelled  previously.  Of  these  frend  was 
naturally  a  common  one  in  days  when  the  be- 
lief still  lingered  that  the  office  of  orthography 
150 


SPELLING    REFORM 

was  to  represent  pronunciation  and  not  to  get 
as  far  away  from  it  at  possible.  Take,  as  an 
illustration,  the  treatise  entitled  The  School- 
master of  the  great  English  scholar,  Roger 
Ascham.  This  appeared  in  1570.  In  it  the 
word  friend  occurs  just  twenty-five  times.  It 
is  regularly  spelled  frend,  with  the  exception 
of  one  instance,  where  the  intruding  i  is  foimd. 
So  also  frendly  is  invariably  the  form  of  the  ad- 
jective, and  jrendship  that  of  the  derivative 
noun.'' 

Oa,  the  next  digraph  in  order,  comes  very 
near  attaining  the  distinction  of  being  repre- 
sented by  a  single  sound.  It  occurs  in  a  fairly 
large  number  of  words  which  can  be  represented 
by  oar,  coat,  loaf.  It  is  saved,  however,  from 
the  reproach  of  regularity  by  having  the  sound 
of  the  a  of  "ball"  in  the  words  broad,  abroad, 
and  groat.  Oe  is  not  so  common,  but,  like  its 
reverse  eo,  what  it  lacks  in  number  of  words  it 
makes  up  in  variety  of  pronunciation.     In  foe, 

'  In  Professor  Arber's  accurate  reprint  of  the  original 
edition,  the  word,  spelled  as  frend,  can  be  found  on 
pages,  20,  21,  22,  24,  43,  73,  75,  87,  89,  90,  91,  94,  99, 
113,  121,  140,  149,  154,  and  158.  In  some  instances 
the  word  appears  two  or  more  times  on  the  page.  On 
pages  23  (twice)  and  113  is  found  frendly,  and  on  page 
140  frendship.  Nowhere  does  the  i  appear  in  these 
last  two  words.  The  solitary  instance  of  the  spelling 
friend  is  on  page  112. 

II  151 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

hoe,  and  toe  it  has  the  sound  of  long  o.  In 
canoe  and  shoe  it  has  the  sound  of  long  u.  In 
these  instances  it  forms  the  termination  of 
words.  Not  so  in  does,  where  it  has  the  sound 
we  call  "short  u."  The  use  of  this  digraph, 
like  that  of  ae,  has  been  much  restricted.  For 
instance,  the  word  we  now  spell  fetid  was  once 
generally  spelled  foetid.  So,  in  truth,  it  con- 
tinued to  be  till  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
digraph,  indeed,  still  lingers  in  the  name  of  the 
drug  asafcetida,  though  in  the  instance  of  this 
word  the  long  sound  has  given  way  to  the  short. 
Not  unlike,  in  some  particulars,  has  been  the 
fortune  of  certain  other  terms.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  word  economy.  Its  remote  Greek 
original  began  with  oi,  which  in  English,  as  in 
Latin,  appeared  with  the  form  a,  and  sometimes 
erroneously  (S.  For  these  was  found  occasion- 
ally the  simple  e.  In  the  nineteenth  century 
this  last  displaced  the  two  others,  and  gave  to 
the  first  syllable  the  present  standard  form. 
One  of  the  results,  however,  of  this  sort  of  sub- 
stitution is  that  no  one  seems  to  be  certain 
whether  he  ought  to  pronounce  the  initial  e  of 
economic  as  long  or  short. 

The  ordinary  sound  of  oo,  the  next  digraph 
to  be  considered,  is  that  of  long  u,  as  we  see  it 
in  nioon,  soon,  food.     But  there  are  about  half 
152 


SPELLING    REFORM 

a  dozen  words — throwing  derivatives  out  of 
consideration— in  which  it  has  the  short  sound 
of  u.  The  difference  can  be  plainly  observed 
by  contrasting  the  pronunciation  of  the  digraph 
in  the  two  words  mood  and  ivood.  Furthermore, 
00  is  to  be  credited  with  two  more  sounds.  One 
is  that  of  the  "short  h"  seen  in  blood  and  flood. 
The  other  is  the  long  sound  of  o  in  door  and  floor, 
anciently  spelled  dore  and  flore.  Dore,  for  in- 
stance, can  be  found  in  Chaucer,  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  and  even  as  late  as  Bunyan. 

The  digraph  on  is  perhaps  the  banner  sign 
for  the  frequency  of  its  occurrence  and  the 
variety  of  sounds  it  indicates.  As  it  appears 
most  commonly,  it  is  a  genuine  diphthong,  as 
seen  in  such  words  as  loud,  sour,  mouth.  But 
there  is  another  large  body  of  words  in  which 
the  sign  has  a  sound  essentially  distinct.  It 
can  be  observed  in  such  words  as  group,  youth, 
tour.  It  gives  one  a  peculiar  idea  of  the  worth 
of  English  orthography  as  a  guide  to  pro- 
nunciation that  in  thou,  the  singular  of  the  pro- 
noun of  the  second  person,  ozt  has  one  value,  and 
in  its  plural,  you,  it  has  a  value  altogether  dif- 
ferent. The  same  observation  is  true  of  the 
possessives  our  and  your.  There  are  two  or 
three  words  in  which  these  two  signs  have  had 
for  a  long  period  a  struggle  for  the  ascendancy. 
153 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Take  the  case  of  the  substantive  wound.  One 
gets  the  impression  from  poetry  that  in  this 
word  the  ou  constitutes  a  genuine  diphthong. 
There  is  no  question  that  it  rymes  regularly 
with  words  containing  the  diphthongal  sound 
here  given.  Perhaps  that  was  a  necessity;  it 
had  to  ryme  with  such  or  not  ryme  at  all.  Still, 
the  verse  seems  pretty  surely  to  have  repre- 
sented the  common  pronunciation.  In  the 
couplets  of  Pope,  the  poetic  authority  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  it  is  joined,  for  instance, 
with  bound,  found,  ground.  Yet  this  same  pro- 
nunciation was  unequivocally  condemned  by 
Walker  at  the  end  of  the  same  century.  "To 
wound,"  he  writes,  "is  sometimes  pronounced 
so  as  to  rhyme  with  found;  but  this  is  directly 
contrary  to  the  best  usage." 

This  same  uncertainty  in  the  pronunciation 
of  words  in  consequence  of  the  uncertainty  of 
the  pronunciation  of  the  signs  employed  to 
represent  it  may  be  further  exemplified  in  the 
case  of  the  noun  route.  Unlike  wound,  which 
is  a  pure  native  word,  this  is  of  French  ex- 
traction. Following  the  analogy  of  most  of 
the  words  so  derived,  it  ought  to  have  the  second 
sound  given  here  to  the  digraph.  Yet  it  not 
unfrequently  receives  that  of  the  first.  Thus 
Walker  graciously  tells  us  that  it  is  often  pro- 
^54 


SPELLING    REFORM 

nounced  so  as  to  ryme  with  doubt  "  by  respect- 
able speakers."  A  far  more  interesting  case  is 
that  of  pour.  The  majority  of  eighteenth  cen- 
tury orthoepists — ^Johnston,  Kenrick,  Perry, 
Smith,  and  Walker — pronounced  the  word  so 
as  to  ryme  with  power.  Spenser  so  employed 
it.  So  did  Pope,  m.ore  than  a  century  later. 
In  the  only  two  instances  he  uses  the  word  in 
his  regular  poetry  at  the  end  of  a  line  it  has  this 
sound.  In  his  Messiah  occurs  the  following 
couplet: 

Ye  Heavens!  from  high  the  dewy  nectar  pour: 
And  in  soft  silence  shed  the  kindly  shower. 

Walker,  indeed,  declared  unreservedly  that  the 
best  pronunciation  of  it  is  "  that  similar  to 
power."  Nares  alone  among  eighteenth  century 
orthoepists  seems  to  have  upheld  what  is  now 
the  customary  pronunciation;  yet  even  here  the 
authority  of  some  of  the  greatest  of  modern 
poets  has  been  occasionally  cast  in  favor  of  the 
once  accepted  sound.  In  his  poem  of  The 
Poet's  Mind,  Tennyson,  for  instance,  writes: 

Holy  water  will  I  pour 
Into  every  spicy  flower. 

The    digraph    is    far    from    being    limited    to 
the  sounds  heard  respectively  in  thou  and  you. 
155 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Another  one  is  that  of  long  o,  found,  for  illus- 
tration, in  dough,  soul,  mould.  There  is  still  an- 
other sound — that  of  the  so-called  "broad  a" — ■ 
which  is  heard  in  brought,  ought,  and  wrought. 
A  fifth  sound  represented  is  that  of  the  regular 
short  u  seen  in  would,  could,  and  should.  In 
cough  and  trough,  as  pronounced  by  many,  there 
is  a  sixth  sound  represented.  In  the  course  of 
its  travels  through  the  vowel  sounds  the  sign 
reaches  that  which  we  commonly  call  "short 
u."  There  is  no  small  number  of  words  in 
which  this  pronunciation  of  it  appears.  Country, 
journey,  trouble,  flourish  may  be  given  as  ex- 
amples. Ou,  in  truth,  has  a  remarkable  record, 
not  so  much  by  the  number  of  sounds  it  repre- 
sents—in this  it  is  approached  by  two  or  three 
other  digraphs — but  by  the  comparative  large- 
ness of  the  body  of  words  in  which  several  of 
these  different  sounds  appear.  In  the  latter 
respect,  but  not  at  all  in  the  former,  is  it  rivalled 
by  the  analogous  ow.  This,  common  as  it  is, 
has  but  two  sounds.  The  first  and  most  fre- 
quent is  that  heard  in  brown,  down,  and  vowel; 
the  second  is  the  long  o  sound  heard  in  such 
words  as  blow,  grow,  and  below. 

We   now   reach    the   digraphs   of   which   the 
vowel  u  is  the  first  letter.     In  a  large  number  of 
words  this  has,  if  pronounced,  the  sound  of  w. 
156 


SPELLING    REFORM 

Especially  is  this  true  of  syllables  upon  which  no 
accent  falls,  or  at  most  a  secondary  accent. 
Nothing  of  this  characteristic  is  seen  in  the  case 
of  uy — in  which  the  diphthongal  sound  of  i  is 
heard  in  the  two  words  buy  and  guy — but  it  is 
noticeable  in  the  case  of  the  first  four  vowels. 
We  can  see  it  illustrated  by  the  ua  of  assuage, 
persuade,  language;  by  the  ue  of  conquest,  re- 
quest, and  desuetude;  by  the  tii  of  anguish, 
languish,  cuirass;  and  by  the  uo  of  quote,  quota, 
quorum.  In  this  last  case  the  u  strictly  belongs 
with  q.  Of  ua,  the  first  of  these  digraphs,  all 
that  needs  to  be  said  is  that  in  certain  words, 
such  as  guard  and  guardian,  the  u  is  not  pro- 
nounced at  all.  The  same  statement  can  be 
made  of  ue  in  gtiess,  guest,  guerdon.  It  is  as  use- 
less as  it  is  silent.  A  plea  has  been  put  forth 
in  justification  of  its  existence  on  the  theory 
that  it  acts  as  a  sort  of  servile  instrument  to  pro- 
tect the  hard  sound  of  g.  If  this  digraph  were 
invariably  so  employed,  it  may  be  conceded 
that  there  would  be  some  sense  in  its  existence. 
But  he  who  expects  to  find  either  sense  or  con- 
sistency in  English  orthography  has  strayed  be- 
yond the  limits  of  justifiable  ignorance.  There 
is  a  large  number  of  instances  in  which  the  con- 
sonant g  continues  to  exhibit  its  hard  sound 
when  followed  directly  by  e.  Get  and  geese 
157 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

and  gewgaw  and  eager  and  anger  are  a  few  of  the 
words  which  could  be  adduced  to  show  that 
there  has  never  been  felt  any  necessity  of  the 
presence  of  a  protecting  u  to  indicate  this 
pronunciation. 

When  at  the  end  of  a  word  the  digraph  ue  has 
often  the  sound  of  long  u,  as  in  blue,  pursue, 
true,  and  rue.  But  no  small  number  of  in- 
stances occur  in  which  it  is  entirely  silent. 
This  is  especially  noticeable  in  words  derived 
from  the  Greek  which  have  the  final  syllables 
logue  or  gogne.  Catalogue,  prologue,  dialogue, 
demagogue,  pedagogue,  and  synagogue  will  serve 
as  examples.  But  the  list  of  words  in  which 
this  digraph  is  silent  is  far  from  being  confined 
to  those  with  these  two  terminations.  Antique, 
oblique,  intrigue,  colleague,  fatigue,  rogue,  and 
plague  will  testify  to  the  uselessness  of  it  as 
far  as  pronunciation  is  concerned,  unless  it  be 
maintained  that  it  justifies  its  existence  by  in- 
dicating that  the  preceding  vowel  has  a  long 
sound.  If  this  be  true,  it  ought  not  to  appear 
when  the  vowel  is  short.  One  sees  so  much  of 
the  results  of  freak  and  wantonness  in  our  spell- 
ing that  it  is  permissible  to  cherish  the  fancy 
that  any  intelligent  principle  has  been  some- 
time somewhere  at  work  in  it,  and  that  a  feeling 
of  this  kind  was  the  unconscious  motive  that 
158 


SPELLING    REFORM 

led  to  the  adoption  of  packet  in  place  of  pacquet 
and  of  lackey  for  lacquey;  at  any  rate,  of  risk  for 
the  once  prevalent  risque  and  of  check  for  cheque. 
But  no  such  reason  can  be  assigned  for  the  ue  of 
tongue.  Its  original  was  tunge.  The  final  e 
ceased  to  be  pronounced,  and  in  course  of  time 
to  be  printed.  The  insertion  of  a  w  in  the  end- 
ing, after  the  fashion  of  the  French  langue,  was 
an  act  of  combined  ignorance  and  folly. 

The  digraph  ui  follows  in  general  the  course 
of  ue.  As  in  the  case  of  the  latter  the  m  was 
found  unneeded  in  guess  and  guest,  so  it  is 
equally  unnecessary  in  guide  and  guile.  Here 
again  a  not  dissimilar  sort  of  defence  for  it  has 
been  set  up.  Its  retention,  we  are  told,  is 
desirable  in  order  to  indicate  the  diphthongal 
sound  of  i  in  these  words.  The  argument  is  as 
futile  as  in  the  case  of  the  preceding  digraph. 
It  illustrates  forcibly  the  capabilities  of  our 
spelling  in  the  way  of  confusing  pronunciation 
that  the  same  combination  which  is  responsible 
for  "long  i"  in  guide  and  guile  and  disguise  is 
equally  responsible  for  the  short  i  of  guilt, 
guinea,  and  build.  With  the  statement  that  ui 
has  still  another  sound  in  such  words  as  frtiit, 
bruise,  and  recruit,  we  leave  the  consideration 
of  the  vowels  and  vowel  sounds.  But  after  the 
survey  of  the  subject  which  has  just  been  made, 
159 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

no  one  is  likely  to  pretend  that  the  pronuncia- 
tion he  hears  of  any  one  of  these  in  a  strange 
word  will  furnish  him  the  least  surety  that  he 
will  be  able  to  reproduce  its  authorized  form 
in  writing. 


THE     CONSONANTS 

So  much  for  the  vowels.  When  we  come 
to  the  consonants  we  are  approaching  much 
more  solid  phonetic  ground.  In  a  general 
way,  they  have  remained  faithful  to  the  sounds 
they  were  created  to  indicate.  Not  but  that 
here  also  there  is  need  of  reform.  This  will  be 
made  sufficiently  manifest  when  details  are 
given  in  the  case  of  individual  letters.  But  the 
disorganization  of  the  consonant  -  system  is 
slight  compared  with  that  of  the  vowel-system. 
There  is,  indeed,  a  fundamental  difference  be- 
tween the  two.  With  the  vowels  conformity 
to  any  phonetic  law  whatever  is  the  exception 
and  not  the  rule.  With  the  consonants  the  re- 
verse is  the  case.  Fortunate  it  is  for  the  English- 
speaking  race  that  such  is  the  fact.  Were  it 
otherwise,  were  there  with  the  consonants  the 
same  degree  of  irregularity  which  exists  with 
the  vowels,  the  same  degree  of  variableness  in 
the  representation  of  sounds,  the  same  widely 
1 60 


SPELLING    REFORM 

prevalent  indifference  to  analogy,  knowledge  of 
English  spelling  would  not  be  delayed,  as  it  is 
now,  for  no  more  than  two  or  three  years  be- 
yond the  normal  time  of  its  acquisition ;  it  would 
be  the  w^ork  of  a  lifetime.  Mastery  of  it,  under 
existing  conditions  never  fully  gained  by  some, 
would  in  such  circumstances  never  be  acquired 
by  anybody  who  learned  anything  else. 

There  is  one  pervading  characteristic  of  the 
consonants  which  differentiates  their  position 
in  the  orthography  from  that  of  the  vowels. 
Wherever  they  appear  they  have  ordinarily  the 
pronunciation  which  is  theirs  by  right.  Or- 
dinarily, not  invariably.  There  are  exceptions 
that  demand  full  discussion.  Still,  the  usual 
way  in  which  consonants  vary  from  the  phonetic 
standard  is  not  by  being  pronounced  differently 
but  by  not  being  pronounced  at  all.  In  some 
instances  the  useless  letter  represents  the  der- 
ivation; in  others  it  defies  it.  They  have  been 
retained  in  the  spelling,  though  never  pro- 
nounced, either  because  they  are  found  in  the 
primitive  from  which  they  came;  or  they  have 
been  introduced  into  it  under  the  influence  of  a 
false  analogy,  or  as  a  consequence  of  a  false 
derivation.  In  any  reform  of  the  orthography 
it  may  not  be  desirable  in  some  cases  to  drop — 
at  all  events  at  the  outset — these  now  silent 
i6i 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

letters.  It  assuredly  would  not  be  so  wherever 
the  tendency  manifests  itself  to  resume  them  in 
pronunciation. 

There  are  four  of  the  consonants  which  prac- 
tically do  not  vary  from  phonetic  law.  They 
are  never  silent;  they  always  indicate  the 
precise  pronunciation  which  they  purport  to 
indicate.  In  the  case  of  two  of  them  there  is  in 
each  a  single  instance  in  which  the  rule  does  not 
hold  good.  In  the  preposition  of,  f  has  the 
sound  of  V.  In  the  matter  of  inflection  the 
temptation  to  retain  this  letter  in  spite  of  the 
change  of  sound  has  been  successfully  resisted. 
So  we  very  properly  say  calves  and  wolves  in- 
stead of  calfs  and  wolfs,  though  this  course  ex- 
hibits what  some  must  feel  to  be  a  scandalous 
tendency  toward  phonetic  spelling.  The  other 
letter  is  m.  The  only  exception  to  its  regular 
pronunciation  is  found  in  the  word  sometimes 
spelled  comptroller.  Here  it  has  the  sound  of 
n.  But  this  has  already  been  pointed  out  as  a 
well-known  spurious  form  based  upon  a  spurious 
derivation.  Its  first  syllable  was  supposed  to 
come  from  the  French  compter  and  not  from  its 
real  original,  the  Latin  contra.  The  affection 
for  this  corrupt  form  now  felt  by  some  is  in 
curious  contrast  with  the  attitude  taken  toward 
cowtt  both  as  a  verb  and  a  noun.  These  words 
162 


SPELLING    REFORM 

were  once  often  spelled  like  the  corresponding 
French  compte  and  compter.  There  was  justi- 
fication for  this.  They  all  came  from  the  re- 
mote Latin  original  computare,  in  which  the  p 
is  found.  Naturally  this  particular  spelling  was 
especially  prevalent  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
when  derivation  ran  rampant  in  the  orthogra- 
phy ;  but  the  practice  extended  much  later.  Had 
compt  continued  in  use  and  fastened  itself  upon 
the  language,  we  can  imagine,  but  we  cannot 
adequately  express,  the  indignation  that  would 
now  be  felt  by  many  worthy  people  at  the  pro- 
posal of  any  reformer  to  substitute  for  it  count, 
and  the  picture  of  ruin  to  the  speech  that  would 
be  drawn  as  a  result  of  such  a  wanton  defiance 
of  the  derivation. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  unpronounced  con- 
sonants. In  the  remote  past  such  letters  when 
no  longer  wanted  were  regularly  dropped.  Now 
they  are  as  regularly  retained.  They  are  re- 
tained not  because  they  are  needed,  but  because 
they  have  become  familiar  to  the  eye.  They 
naturally  fall  into  three  classes,  according  as 
they  appear  at  the  beginning,  at  the  end,  or  in 
the  middle  of  a  word.  To  the  first  class  belong 
g  and  k  when  followed  by  n;  w  followed  by  ho  or 
by  r;  and  the  aspirate  h.  The  failure  to  pro- 
nounce this  last  in  certain  words  is  too  well 
163 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

known  to  need  here  more  than  a  reference. 
Elsewhere,  too,  I  have  given  an  account  of  the 
gradual  resumption  of  the  sound  of  this  letter.^ 

There  are  about  half  a  dozen  words  in  which 
an  initial  g  is  silent.  Of  these  gnaw  and  gnat  may 
be  taken  as  examples.  There  are  more  than 
double  this  number  in  which  an  initial  k  before 
the  same  letter  n  is  not  heard.  These  are 
adequately  represented,  with  the  different  vowels 
following,  by  knave,  knee,  knife,  know,  and 
knuckle.  Still  more  frequently  unsounded  is  an 
initial  w.  There  are  fully  two  dozen  and  a  half 
of  words  in  which  this  letter  is  not  pronounced. 
The  class  finds  satisfactory  exemplification  in 
who,  whole,  wrap,  wrest,  wrist,  wrong,  and  wry. 
In  making  up  these  numbers  it  must  be  kept  in 
mind  that  neither  derivatives  nor  compounds 
are  taken  into  account.  Were  such  to  be  in- 
cluded, the  list  would  be  largely  swelled. 

In  the  cases  just  considered  a  letter  once 
sounded  has  disappeared  from  the  spoken 
tongue.  The  fact  of  its  disappearance  from 
pronunciation  has  not,  however,  induced  men, 
as  was  once  the  practice,  to  discard  it  from  the 
written  tongue.  But  there  are  instances  in 
which  the  initial  consonant  has  never  been  heard 

^Standard  of  Pronunciation  in  English,  pp.  191-202. 
164 


SPELLING    REFORM 

at  all  in  the  utterance  of  any  speakers.  The 
words  to  which  they  belong  are  of  foreign  origin. 
They  come  to  us  with  the  foreign  spelling.  In 
many  cases,  or  rather  in  most,  they  are  from 
the  Greek.  The  conspicuous  examples  are  the 
c  of  czar,  now  frequently  spelled  tsar  with  the  t 
sounded,  the  p  of  psalm  and  pseudo  and  of 
several  compounds  in  which  the  psi  of  the  Hel- 
lenic alphabet  furnishes  the  initial  letter.  The 
same  uselessness  extends  to  ph — seen,  for  illus- 
tration, in  the  form  phthisic — and  to  the  p  of 
words  of  Greek  origin  beginning  with  pt.  It 
may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  there  is  a 
curious  blunder  in  the  spelling  of  the  name  of  the 
bird  called  the  ptarmigan.  This  is  a  pure 
Celtic  word,  which  begins  with  /.  To  it  a  /? 
was  prefixed,  possibly  because  it  was  supposed 
to  be  of  Greek  origin. 

The  final  consonants  which  are  retained  in 
the  spelling  but  are  not  heard  in  the  pronuncia- 
tion are  b,  n,  h,  t,  iv,  and  x.  The  words  possess- 
ing them  may  be  divided  into  two  classes.  In 
one  the  useless  letter  has  a  sort  of  claim  to 
existence.  It  was  there  originally.  Let  us 
begin  with  the  unpronounced  final  b.  The 
native  words  ending  in  it  are  climb,  comb,  dumb, 
and  lamb.  They  are  common  to  the  various 
Teutonic  languages.  In  all  of  these  they  ter- 
165 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

minated  originally  with  this  consonant.  To 
the  list  may  be  added  plumb,  '  perpendicular,' 
coming  remotely  from  the  Latin  plumhuni, 
'lead.'  The  spelling  of  these  words  underwent 
the  usual  variations  common  before  a  fixed  or- 
thography had  fastened  itself  upon  the  speech. 
Naturally  the  unpronounced  b  was  not  unfre- 
quently  dropped.  This  was  especially  true  of 
climb  and  dumb.  Take  as  an  illustration  Spen- 
ser's line,  where  he  speaks  of  a  castle-wall, 

That  was  so  high  as  foe  might  not  it  clime.* 

But  after  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  the  useless  let- 
ter gradually  but  firmly  fixed  its  hold  upon  the 
spelling  in  the  case  of  all  these  words.  In  this 
respect  English  has  had  a  different  development 
from  that  of  other  Teutonic  tongues.  Take 
modern  German,  for  instance.  For  the  word 
corresponding  to  climb  it  has  replaced  the  orig- 
inal chlimban  by  klimmcn;  for  chamb,  'comb,' 
it  has  substituted  kamm;  for  dumb  in  Old  High 
German  tumb,  it  has  dumm;  for  lamb,  in  Old 
High  German  lamb,  it  has  lamm.  The  drop- 
ping of  the  final  b  seems  to  have  wrought  no 
observable  harm  to  the  language  nor  occasioned 

^Faerie  Queene,  Book  II,  canto  ix,  st.  21. 
166 


SPELLING    REFORM 

any  grief — at  all  events,  any  present  grief — to 
its  users. 

Still,  it  may  be  maintained  in  justification  of 
the  present  spelling  of  these  words  that  they 
are  entitled  to  the  final  b  on  the  ground  of 
derivation.  But  no  such  plea  can  be  put  up 
in  the  case  of  those  now  to  be  considered.  These 
are  crumb,  limb,  numb,  and  thumb.  In  all  of 
these  the  last  letter  is  not  only  useless,  but 
according  to  the  term  one  chooses  to  employ, 
it  is  either  a  blunder  or  a  corruption.  It  did 
not  exist  in  the  original.  In  truth,  this  unneces- 
sary consonant  threatened  at  one  time  to  fasten 
itself  also  upon  the  name  of  the  fruit  called  the 
plum.  Especially  was  this  noticeable  in  the 
best  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century.  An 
attack  of  common  sense,  to  which  the  users  of 
our  orthography  have  been  occasionally  liable, 
prevented  this  particular  word  from  carrying 
about  the  burden  of  the  unpronounced  b.  In 
the  case  of  most  of  the  others  it  was  not  until 
the  sixteenth  century  that  the  practice  began 
of  appending  the  unauthorized  and  unneeded 
letter.  It  took  something  of  a  struggle  to  foist 
it  upon  these  words;  but  not  so  much,  indeed,  as 
will  be  required  to  loose  the  hold  it  has  now 
gained  over  the  hearts  of  thousands. 

There  are  a  few  words,  almost  all  of  Latin 
13  167 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

derivation,  in  which  a  final  n  appears  unsound- 
ed. Kiln  is  perhaps  the  only  one  of  English 
extraction  in  which  this  peculiarity  appears. 
In  the  case  of  most  of  them  the  retention 
of  the  letter  may  be  defended — at  least  it 
may  be  palliated — on  the  ground  that  in  the 
derivatives  its  pronunciation  is  resumed.  In 
autumn,  cohimn,  condemn,  hymn,  and  Umri  the 
n  is  silent,  but  it  gives  distinct  evidence  of  its 
existence  in  words  like  autumnal,  columnar, 
condemnation,  hymnal,  limner,  and  solemnity. 
In  fact,  this  resumption  of  the  sound  has  at 
times  been  made  to  appear  in  other  parts  of  the 
verbs  containing  this  silent  letter.  Especially 
has  this  been  true  of  hymning  and  limning,  the 
participles  of  hymn  and  limn.  It  was  a  prac- 
tice which  much  grieved  certain  of  the  earlier 
orthoepists.  They  took  the  ground  that  anal- 
ogy forbade  any  sound  not  belonging  to  the 
principal  verb  itself  to  be  heard  in  any  of  its 
parts.  The  observation  is  only  noticeable  for 
its  revelation  of  the  fact  that  it  should  enter 
into  the  head  of  any  advocate  of  the  existing 
orthography  to  set  up  analogy  as  a  convincing 
reason  for  pronouncing  any  English  word  in  a 
particular  way. 

Three  of  these  final  unpronounced  letters  do 
not  need  protracted  consideration.     In  the  di- 
i68 


SPELLING    REFORM 

graph  ow,  ending  such  words  as  low,  flow,  and 
sow,  the  w  serves  no  particular  use.  According 
to  some  it  justifies  its  existence  by  indicating 
the  quaHty  of  the  preceding  vowel.  Its  value 
in  this  respect  may  be  estimated  by  comparing 
the  pronunciation  of  bow,  a  missile  weapon  for 
discharging  an  arrow,  with  boiv,  an  inclination 
of  the  head,  or  bow,  the  fore-end  of  a  boat.  The 
next  letter  /,  when  a  final  consonant,  is  in- 
variably heard,  save  in  some  imperfectly  natu- 
ralized words.  Of  these  eclat  and  billet-doux 
may  be  taken  as  examples.  In  England,  how- 
ever— not  in  the  United  States — there  is  a  single 
and  singular  survival  of  the  original  French 
pronunciation  in  the  case  of  a  word  received 
into  full  citizenship.  This  is  the  noun  trait, 
which  came  into  the  language  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Naturally  its  final  letter  was  at  first 
not  sounded.  The  tendency  so  to  do,  however, 
soon  showed  itself.  Lexicographers  authoiized 
it,  indeed  favored  it;  but  for  some  inexplicable 
reason  Englishmen  have  never  taken  kindly  to 
the  complete  naturalization  of  the  word.  "  The 
/,"  said  Walker,  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  "begins  to  be  pronounced."  Had  he 
been  living  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth,  he 
would  have  been  justified  in  saying  precisely 
the  same  thing  as  regards  England.  It  was 
169 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

beginning  then;  it  is  beginning  now;  but  it  is 
only  beginning. 

A  final  h  is  not  pronounced  when  preceded  by 
a  vowel;  when  preceded  by  the  consonant  g  it 
forms  a  digraph  which  will  be  considered  later. 
There  are  fewer  than  a  dozen  words  of  the 
former  class  in  which  it  appears.  Among  these 
are  the  interjections,  ah,  eh,  and  oh.  Here 
again,  as  in  the  case  of  w,  the  existence  of  the 
letter  is  defended  on  the  ground  that  it  indi- 
cates the  quality  of  the  preceding  vowel.  Yet 
for  this  purpose  it  can  hardly  be  deemed  a 
necessity.  We  use  it  in  the  case  of  ah;  but  we 
get  along  very  well  without  it  in  the  case  of  ha. 
This,  too,  was  formerly  sometimes  spelled  hah. 
Oh,  likewise,  was  once  widely  found  in  the  very 
instances  and  the  very  senses  where  we  now 
use  the  single  letter  0.  In  two  other  words, 
Messiah  and  hallelujah,  the  h  may  be  retained 
because  of  the  sacredness  of  associations  which 
have  gathered  about  them.  Yet  the  former 
word  was  itself  a  sixteenth-century  alteration 
of  the  previous  Messias. 

The  unpronounced  final  k  belongs  strictly  to 
the  class  of  double  letters  of  which  it  is  not  my 
purpose  to  treat.  It  invariably  follows  c,  and 
is  really  nothing  but  a  duplicate  of  it.  Still,  as 
the  sign  is  a  different  representation  of  the 
170 


SPELLING    REFORM 

same  sound,  it  may  be  well  to  bestow  upon  it  a 
brief  attention.  At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  it 
was  dropped,  after  a  warm  contest,  from  words 
of  Latin  derivation.  But  the  reform  did  not 
extend  to  those  of  native  origin.  In  many 
cases  a  k  has  been  added  to  words  which  orig- 
inally ended  in  c.  Especially  was  this  true  of 
monosyllables.  Thus  the  earliest  form  of  back 
was  hcBC,  of  sack  was  sac,  of  sick  was  seoc.  This 
was  the  case  not  only  with  a  good  many  mono- 
syllables to  which  a  ^  is  now  appended,  but  to 
a  certain  extent  with  dissyllables  also.  The  fact 
is  best  exemplified  in  the  words  which  have  the 
ending  ock.  This  sometimes  represents  the 
early  English  diminutive  uc,  which  became 
later  oc  or  ok.  From  the  point  of  view  of  der- 
ivation the  modern  spelling  is  distinctly  im- 
proper. Thus,  for  illustration,  bullock,  haddock, 
hassock,  hillock,  and  mattock  were  in  their 
earliest  known  forms  bulluc,  haddoc,  hassuc, 
hilloc,  and  mattuc.  Several  words  not  of  native 
origin  have  also  adopted  this  ending.  Ham- 
mock, from  the  Spanish  hamaca,  itself  of  Carib 
origin,  has  conformed  to  it.  It  has  supplied 
itself  with  a  final  k.  During  the  last  century 
havoc  managed  to  get  rid  of  this  consonant,  with 
which  it  had  been  encumbered,  without  excit- 
171 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

ing  any  special  remark.  But  now  that  the  use- 
lessness  of  a  letter  has  become  to  many  one  of 
the  chief  recommendations  of  the  spelling,  the 
dropping  of  an  unnecessary  k  from  any  of  the 
other  words  of  this  class  would  bring  unspeak- 
able anguish  to  thousands. 

There  are  more  consonants  which  are  un- 
pronounced  in  the  middle  of  words  than  at  the 
beginning  or  the  end.  They  are  b,  c,  I,  g,  h, 
p,  s,  t,  IV,  and  z.  In  the  case  of  some  of  them — 
the  two  last,  for  instance — the  words  in  which 
the  unpronounced  letter  appears  are  very  few. 
In  rendezvous  z  is  not  sounded.  It  is  the  only 
instance  in  which  this  consonant  is  not  heard, 
and  this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  not  heard  in 
its  French  original.  Again,  it  is  only  in  answer, 
sword,  and  two  that  the  medial  w  is  silent.  Un- 
pronounced consonants  are  more  frequent  in  the 
case  of  the  other  letters,  but,  after  all,  they  are 
not  numerous  in  themselves.  Still,  their  pres- 
ence has  its  usual  effect.  In  every  instance  it 
raises  a  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  the  proper 
pronunciation.  Furthermore,  it  has  in  some 
cases  either  hidden  the  right  derivation  entirely 
or  given  a  wrong  idea  of  it. 

Take  the  example  of  the  medial  h  in  debt  and 
doubt.  These  words,  coming  originally  from 
the  French,  were  introduced  into  the  language 
172 


SPELLING    REFORM 

with  the  spelUng,  dette,  det,  and  doitte,  douL  So 
for  a  long  time  they  were  spelled.  Deference 
to  the  remote  Latin  original,  which  sprang  up 
with  the  revival  of  learning,  introduced  the  un- 
authorized b  into  the  world.  It  has  already 
been  pointed  out  that  this  has  given  an  op- 
portunity, which  has  been  fully  improved,  for 
the  devotees  of  derivation  to  exhibit  their  usual 
inconsistency.  When  the  presence  of  unpro- 
nounced  letters  in  the  case  of  other  words  pre- 
sents an  obstacle  to  correct  pronunciation,  then 
its  retention  is  insisted  upon  as  essential  to  our 
knowledge  of  its  immediate  origin,  to  the  purity 
of  the  language  itself,  and  to  the  happiness  of 
those  speaking  it.  But  no  advocate  of  the 
existing  orthography  could  be  induced  to  part 
with  the  b  of  debt  and  doubt,  though  its  presence 
comes  into  direct  conflict  with  the  views  he  is 
championing  in  the  case  of  other  words.  At 
times  attempts  were  apparently  made  to  pro- 
nounce the  inserted  b.  In  the  full  Latinized 
form  debit,  which  was  early  in  use,  there  was  no 
difficulty.  Indeed,  it  was  a  necessity.  Not  so 
in  the  form  debt.  Yet  it  is  evident  from  Love's 
Labour  '5  Lost  that  there  were  men  who  sought 
to  accomplish  this  feat.  It  is  difficult  to  ascer- 
tain whether  speaker  or  hearer  suffered  more  in 
consequence  of  this  effort.  If  unsuccessful,  it 
173 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

was   the   speaker;   if   successful,    the   pain    was 
transferred  to  the  hearer. 

One  curious  blunder  has  been  foisted  upon  our 
spelling  by  the  desire  of  men  to  go  back  to  the 
Latin  original  of  these  words  instead  of  content- 
ing themselves  with  the  immediate  French 
one.  The  insertion  of  b  is  bad  enough  in  re- 
doubted and  redoubtable.  These  came  to  us  from 
the  latter  tongue,  and  at  first  appeared  in 
English  in  the  forms  redouted  and  redoutable. 
Later  the  classical  influence  made  itself  felt  and 
the  b  was  inserted.  Palliation  for  it  could  be 
pleaded  on  the  ground  that  the  letter  belonged 
to  the  remote  original.  But  no  defence  of  this 
sort  could  be  of  avail  in  the  case  of  the  word 
denoting  the  military  outwork  called  a  redoubt. 
This  has  not  the  slightest  connection  either  in 
sense  or  origin  with  the  two  adjectives  just 
specified.  It  comes  directly  from  the  French 
redout  and  remotely  from  the  Latin  reductus, 
'withdrawn,'  'retired,'  which  received  at  a 
later  period  the  meaning  of  'a  place  of  refuge.' 
But  it  was  ignorantly  supposed  that  it  came 
from  the  same  source  as  the  verb  redoubt  and  its 
past  participle  redoubted.  So  from  the  beginning 
of  the  introduction  of  the  word  into  the  lan- 
guage, in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, an  unauthorized  b  was  made  part  of  it. 
174 


SPELLING    REFORM 

It  is  now  dear  to  the  hearts  of  millions.  What 
the  blundering  of  one  age  perpetrated  the 
superstition  of  succeeding  ages  has  invested 
with  peculiar  sanctity. 

The  cases  in  which  c  follows  ^  present  several 
choice  examples  of  the  vagaries  which  make 
English  orthography  a  wonder  to  those  who 
study  its  history,  and  a  perpetual  joy  and  boast 
to  those  who  in  this  matter  succeed  in  keeping 
the  purity  of  their  ignorance  from  being  defiled 
by  the  slightest  stain  of  knowledge.  In  the 
words  scene,  scepter,  and  sciatica,  coming  di- 
rectly or  remotely  from  the  Greek,  the  letter 
represents  an  original  k.  So,  useless  as  it  is,  its 
retention  may  be  defended  on  the  ground 
that  if  it  be  not  the  same  letter,  it  ought  to  be, 
since  it  has  the  same  value.  The  similar  apology 
of  respect  for  derivation  may  be  urged  for  the 
unpronounced  c  of  science,  scintilla,  and  sciolist. 
But  in  the  case  of  scent,  scion,  scimitar,  scissors, 
and  scythe,  no  such  plea  can  be  made.  In  the 
instance  of  all  these  there  is  not  the  slight- 
est justification  for  the  unnecessary  c.  Scent 
comes  from  the  Latin  sent-ire,  'to  perceive.' 
Until  the  seventeenth  century  it  was  regularly 
spelled  sent.  Scythe,  from  the  Anglo-Saxon 
sUhe,  once  frequently  and  now  occasionally  has 
its  strictly  correct  etymological  form.  Scion 
175 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

is  from  the  old  French  sion.  Scimitar  and 
scissors  have  had  a  wide  variety  of  spellings 
during  the  course  of  their  history.  English 
orthography  has  exhibited,  as  is  not  unusual,  a 
perverse  preference  for  the  ones  which  depart 
furthest  from  the  pronunciation. 

The  instances  where  g  is  silent  within  a  word 
are  those  in  which  it  is  found  preceding  m  or  n. 
Its  presence  it  owes,  in  most  instances,  to  deriva- 
tion. Examples  of  it  can  be  found  in  a  number 
of  words  of  Greek  extraction,  of  which  para- 
digm, diaphragm,  and  phlegm  may  be  given. 
With  a  following  n  it  can  be  represented  by 
campaign,  feign,  sign,  and  impugn.  As  has 
been  the  case  with  the  final  n  of  certain  words, 
so  also  the  pronunciation  of  the  g  is  resumed 
in  the  derivatives.  That  may  be  deemed  by 
some  a  justification  for  its  retention  in  the 
primitive — at  least,  for  the  time  being.  With 
sign  we  have  signify,  with  malign  we  have 
malignity,  with  phlegm  we  have  pJilegmatic.  But 
the  g  is  a  particularly  ridiculous  intruder  in  the 
words  foreign  and  sovereign.  The  former  is 
from  the  Old  French  forein,  which  itself  comes 
from  the  popular  Latin  foraneus,  and  this  in 
turn  comes  from  the  classical  Latin  foras,  '  out 
of  doors.'  Sovereign  is  a  spelling  just  as  bad. 
It  comes  from  the  Old  French  sovrain,  the  Low 
176 


SPELLING    REFORM 

Latin  superanus,  '  supreme,'  which  was  formed 
upon  the  preposition  super,  '  above.'  The  inser- 
tion of  a  g  was  a  blunder  for  which  our  race  has 
the  sole  responsibility. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  words  in  which  h  is 
silent  following  an  initial  letter.  This  is  in- 
variably true  of  words  of  Greek  extraction  be- 
ginning with  rh.  Rhetoric,  rheumatic,  and  rhu- 
barb may  serve  as  specimens.  In  these,  as  in 
those  like  them,  the  h  was  wanting  in  Old  French. 
Consequently,  it  was  at  first  wanting  in  English 
also.  But  the  deference  to  derivation  which 
prevailed  among  the  classically  educated  after 
the  revival  of  learning,  raised  havoc  here  with 
the  spelling  as  it  did  in  so  many  other  instances. 
The  unpronounced  h  was  inserted  into  all  these 
words.  This  began  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
It  gradually  established  itself  firmly  in  the 
orthography.  There  it  has  remained  ever  since, 
though  no  one  pretends  that  it  serves  any  pur- 
pose save  that  of  indicating  to  the  few,  who 
do  not  need  to  be  informed,  that  the  aspirate 
existed  in  the  original  from  which  these  words 
were  derived.  But  even  this  pitiable  reason 
cannot  be  pleaded  in  the  case  of  the  noticeable 
words  in  which  h  follows  an  initial  g.  These 
are  ghastly  and  aghast,  ghost,  and  gherkin.  In 
not  one  of  them,  except  the  last,  did  h  ap- 
177 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

pear  till  many  htindred  years  after  the  words 
had  been  in  existence.  To  not  one  of  them  does 
the  useless  letter  belong  by  right.  Indeed,  it 
was  apparently  not  till  the  nineteenth  century 
that  it  was  foisted  into  gherkin  as  the  regular 
spelling,  though  it  had  cropped  up  before. 
There  would  be  just  as  much  sense  in  spelling 
German  as  Gherman,  and  goat  as  ghoat,  as  there 
is  in  the  intrusion  of  the  h  into  the  words  just 
mentioned.     This  is  equally  true  of  anchor. 

There  is,  however,  one  further  peculiarity 
about  this  letter.  In  the  spelling  of  certain 
words  it  follows  w,  in  the  pronunciation  of  them 
it  precedes  it.  But  the  fashion  of  suppressing 
the  sound  of  the  aspirate  in  the  combination 
wh  is  very  characteristic  of  the  speech  of  Eng- 
land, at  least  of  some  parts  of  it.  The  prev- 
alence of  this  sort  of  pronunciation  which  makes 
no  distinction,  for  example,  between  where  and 
wear,  between  Whig  and  wig,  between  while  and 
wile,  was  a  subject  of  great,  and  it  maj''  be 
added,  of  justifiable  grief  to  the  earlier  orthoe- 
pists.  Walker  complained  bitterly  of  the  ex- 
tent of  its  use  in  London.  He  was  anxious  that 
men  should  "  avoid  this  feeble  Cockney  pro- 
nunciation which  is  so  disagreeable  to  a  correct 
ear."  Fortunately  for  the  speech  this  sup- 
pression of  the  aspirate  has  not  extended  much 
178 


SPELLING    REFORM 

beyond  the  southern  half  of  England.  In 
America  it  rarely  takes  place.  There  is,  there- 
fore, every  likelihood  of  this  pronunciation  being 
eventually  crushed,  not  so  much  because  of  its 
own  inherent  viciousness  as  by  the  mere  weight 
of  numbers. 

There  is  a  limited  body  of  words  in  which  / 
and  p  are  silent.  The  former  letter  in  such 
cases  as  balm  and  calm,  for  instance,  may  per- 
haps have  been  effective  in  preserving  the  sound 
of  the  preceding  vowel.  The  most  signal  ex- 
ample of  its  appearance,  where  it  has  no  justi- 
fication for  its  existence,  is  in  the  word  could. 
This  takes  the  place  of  the  earlier  and  more 
correct  cotide,  coud.  The  I  was  introduced  by  a 
false  analogy  with  would  and  should.  These  two 
last  words,  it  may  be  added,  at  times  dropped 
this  letter,  to  which  etymologically  they  were 
entitled,  out  of  deference  to  the  pronuncia- 
tion, just  as  could,  though  not  entitled  to  it, 
assumed  it  in  defiance  of  the  pronunciation. 

The  most  noticeable  instances  in  which  p  is 
not  pronounced  are  when  it  follows  m  and  is  it- 
self followed  by  t.  Empty,  tempt,  prompt,  and 
sumptuous  will  supply  a  sufficient  number  of 
illustrations.  In  most  of  these  cases  the  letter 
still  appears  because  it  was  in  the  original.  In 
empty,  however,  it  is  a  later  insertion.  There 
179 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

are  two  or  three  sporadic  instances  in  which  a 
p  is  present  but  fails  to  be  called  upon  for  duty. 
Such  are  raspberry  and  receipt.  In  the  first  of 
these  two  rasberry  seems  to  have  been  for  a 
long  time  the  preferred  spelling.  Unless  there 
is  a  prospect  that  the  sound  of  the  letter  will 
be  resumed  in  the  pronunciation,  there  is  no 
apparent  reason  why  we  should  not  go  back 
to  the  once  more  common  form.  But  receipt, 
with  the  allied  conceit  and  deceit,  furnishes  as 
good  an  illustration  as  can  well  be  offered  of 
the  vagaries  of  English  orthography,  and  of 
the  system  which  has  prevailed  in  and  the 
sense  which  has  presided  over  its  development. 
These  three  words  all  come  remotely  from  the 
three  closely  allied  participial  forms  receptus, 
conceptus,  and  deceptus.  The  earlier  most  com- 
mon spelling  of  the  first  was  receit  or  receyt. 
While  the  form  with  the  inserted  p  existed  pre- 
viously, it  was  not  till  the  Elizabethan  period 
that  it  began  to  be  much  in  evidence.  Further- 
more, it  was  not  till  the  latter  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century  that  the  unnecessary  letter 
established  itself  in  the  unfortunate  word.  Con- 
ceit and  deceit  went  through  what  was  in  many 
respects  the  same  experience.  The  forms  con- 
ceipt  and  deceipt  were  foimd  not  unfrequently. 
But  in  them  the  p  failed  to  maintain  itself. 
i8o 


SPELLING    REFORM 

So  words  from  a  common  Latin  root  have  de- 
veloped two  different  ways  of  spelling,  with 
not  the  slightest  reason  in  the  nature  of  things 
why  any  distinction  whatever  should  be  made 
between  them. 

The  silence  of  5  in  some  few  words,  such  as 
isle,  aisle,  and  island,  has  already  been  men- 
tioned. In  viscount  it  is  also  suppressed,  doubt- 
less in  deference  to  the  French  original.  But  in 
the  middle  of  words  t  is  far  more  frequently  left 
unpronounced  than  s.  This  is  especially  notice- 
able when  it  is  followed  by  le  on  the  one  hand^ 
as  can  be  seen  in  castle,  wrestle,  thistle,  ostler,  and 
rustle;  on  the  other  hand,  when  followed  by  en, 
as  in  fasten,  hasten,  listen,  and  moisten.  There 
are  a  few  other  words  besides  those  with  these 
endings  in  which  it  is  silent.  Such  are  Christ- 
mas, chestnut,  mortgage,  bankruptcy.  That  it 
should  not  be  heard  in  words  of  French  origin 
like  billet-doux  and  hautbois  is  not  hard  to  under- 
stand ;  they  have  never  been  fully  naturalized. 

This  exhausts  the  list  of  simple  consonants 
that  are  found  in  the  written  language,  but  are 
not  heard  in  the  spoken.  There  remains,  how- 
ever, a  digraph  which  is  encountered  too  fre- 
quently not  to  receive  brief  mention.  This  is 
gh,  both  at  the  end  and  in  the  middle  of  words. 
In  these  positions  it  once  stood  for  something. 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

It  had,  therefore,  originally  a  right  to  the  place 
in  which  it  now  appears.  But  the  guttural 
sound  it  indicated  disappeared  long  ago  from 
the  usage  of  all  of  us.  Even  the  knowledge  that 
it  had  ever  existed  has  disappeared  from  the 
memory  of  most  of  us,  if  it  was  ever  found  there. 
Accordingly  it  serves  now  no  other  purpose  than 
to  act  as  a  sort  of  tombstone  to  mark  the  place 
where  lie  the  unsightly  remains  of  a  dead  and 
forgotten  pronunciation.  The  useless  digraph 
is  still  seen  at  the  end  of  numerous  words  of 
which  weigh,  high,  and  dough  may  be  taken  as 
examples.  Again  an  unpronounced  medial  gh 
is  seen  in  neighbor  and  a  large  number  of  words 
ending  'in  ght,  such  as  caught,  height,  fight,  and 
thought.  In  many  of  these  words  the  digraph 
was  frequently  dropped  in  those  earlier  days 
when  there  was  a  perverse  propensity  to  make 
the  spelling  show  some  respect  to  the  pronuncia- 
tion. High,  for  instance,  often  appeared  in  the 
forms  hye,  hy;  nigh  in  the  forms  nye,  ny.  This 
is  now  all  changed.  The  disposition  to  pander 
to  any  sneaking  desire  to  bring  about  a  scan- 
dalous conformity  between  orthography  and 
orthoepy  is  steadily  frowned  upon  by  those 
who  have  been  good  enough  to  take  upon  their 
shoulders  the  burden  of  preserving  what  they  are 
pleased  to  call  the  purity  of  the  English  language. 


SPELLING    RE  FORM 

This  survey  of  the  subject,  brief  as  it  is, 
brings  out  distinctly  the  superiority  of  the  con- 
sonant system  over  the  vowel,  in  the  matter  of 
unpronounced  letters.  Far  from  perfect  as  is 
the  former,  it  shines  by  contrast  with  the  latter. 
The  useless  consonant  appears  in  but  a  few 
words,  where  the  useless  vowel  appears  in 
scores.  But  when  we  pass  on  to  the  cases  in 
which  the  sign  is  represented  by  any  but  its 
legitimate  sound,  the  contrast  between  the  two 
classes  of  letters  becomes  far  more  noticeable. 
It  is  the  superiority  in  this  particular  which 
alone  makes  our  present  spelling  endurable. 
Most  of  the  consonants,  if  pronounced  at  all, 
have  in  all  cases  one  and  the  same  sound. 
Any  possible  acquisition  of  the  speech  in  the 
term  of  a  man's  natural  life  has  depended  upon 
the  fact  that  these  members  of  the  alphabet  are 
in  general  really  phonetic.  Their  faithfulness 
to  their  legitimate  sounds  stands  in  sharpest 
contrast  to  the  almost  hopeless  disorganization 
which  has  overtaken  the  vowels.  In  the  case 
of  some  of  the  consonants  there  is  never  any 
variation  from  their  proper  pronunciation.  In 
the  case  of  others  the  exceptions  to  the  regular 
practice  are  purely  sporadic.  The  p  of  cup- 
board, for  instance,  has  the  sound  of  /),  the  /  of 
hallelujah  has  the  sound  of  y.     Even  these  ex- 

X3  183 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

ceptions  which  have  prevailed  in  the  past  there 
has  been  a  tendency  to  reduce,  owing  to  the 
operation  of  agencies  of  which  there  will  be 
occasion  to  speak  later. 

This  last  statement  needs  modification  in  the 
case  of  one  letter.  In  modern  times  there  has 
been  a  tendency  to  represent  the  sound  of  t  in 
the  preterite  and  past  participle  by  d,  or,  rather, 
ed.  As  compared  with  the  usage  of  the  past, 
this  practice  has  made  a  good  deal  of  headway. 
It  is  the  substitution  of  a  formal  regularity  of 
spelling  which  appeals  to  the  eye.  over  its  proper 
use  to  indicate  the  sound  to  the  ear.  We  have 
not  yet  got  so  far  as  to  write  steeped  for  slept  or 
feeled  for  felt,  but  we  have  frequently  dwelled 
for  dwelt  and  builded  for  built.  This  is  all  proper 
enough  if  the  d  sound  is  given  to  the  ending 
by  pronouncing  the  word,  as  is  often  done,  as  a 
dissylable.  But  no  reason  can  be  pleaded  for 
it  if  t  is  heard  as  the  termination.  In  this  mat- 
ter we  are  far  behind  our  fathers. 

Take  the  usage  of  Spenser,  as  illustrated  on 
this  point  in  the  first  canto  of  the  first  book  of 
the  Faerie  Queene.  This  contains  about  five 
hundred  lines.  In  every  case  whenever  a  pre- 
terite or  past  participle  has  the  sound  of  /,  it 
is  spelled  with  t.  In  this  one  canto — and  it 
fairly  represents  all  the  others — can  be  found 
184 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  preterites  advaunst,  approdit,  chaunst,  cn- 
haunst,  forst,  glaunst,  grypt,  knockt,  lept,  lookt, 
nurst,  pusht,  y-rockt,  stopt,  and  tost.  Along  with 
these  are  to  be  seen  as  past  participles  accurst, 
enforst,  mixt,  past,  promist,  stretcht,  vanquisht, 
and  wrapt.  Now,  to  a  certain  extent  this  is  an 
unfair  illustration.  No  one  can  read  the  Faerie 
Queene  without  becoming  aware  that  Spenser 
was  a  good  deal  of  a  spelling  reformer.  Neces- 
sarily, he  was  largely  dominated  by  the  ignoble 
idea  that  orthography  should  have  a  close  con- 
nection with  the  pronunciation.  Still,  though 
in  certain  particulars  he  took  very  advanced 
ground,  he  only  practiced  on  a  large  scale  what 
on  a  small  scale  was  followed  by  very  many 
of  his  contemporaries  and  immediate  success- 
ors. 

We  pass  on  now  to  the  consideration  of  the 
six  sounds  for  which  the  alphabet  has  no  special 
sign  whatever.  Two  of  them  are  the  surd  and 
sonant  sounds,  already  considered,  for  which 
the  digraph  th  has  become  the  conmion  repre- 
sentative. It  may  be  right  to  add  that  this 
same  digraph  is  also  equivalent  in  a  few  cases 
to  the  simple  t,  as  in  thyme  and  Thames.  The 
four  other  sounds  can  be  recognized  perhaps 
most  easily  in  the  ch  of  church,  the  ng  of  bring, 
the  sh  of  ship,  and  the  5  of  pleasure.  But  here, 
185 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

as  elsewhere  in  our  orthography,  reigns  the 
usual  lawlessness.  The  signs  here  given  repre- 
sent other  sounds  than  those  just  specified. 
Take  the  case  of  ng.  Any  one  can  detect  at 
once  the  difi'erence  in  the  pronunciation  of  this 
digraph  by  contrasting  it  as  heard  in  singer  and 
as  heard  in  finger.  Nor  has  ch  been  limited  to 
the  sound  indicated  in  chair,  cheer,  child,  choose, 
and  churn.  It  has  another,  perhaps  more  fre- 
quently denoted  by  sh  in  the  beginning,  middle, 
and  end  of  words,  as,  for  illustration,  in  chaise, 
machine,  and  bench.  It  has  likewise  the  sound 
of  k  in  many  words,  especially  in  those  of  Greek 
origin,  such  as  character,  mechanic,  monarch. 
The  uncertainty  caused  by  this  variety  of  pro- 
nunciation is  particularly  noticeable  in  words 
in  which  arch  appears  as  the  initial  syllable. 
In  archangel,  for  instance,  ch  has  one  pronuncia- 
tion, in  archbishop  it  has  another.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  two  must  therefore  be  pain- 
fully learned.  There  is,  furthermore,  the  sporadic 
example  of  choir,  in  which  ch  has  the  sound  of 
kw,  ordinarily  represented  by  qu.  But  choir  was 
a  late  seventeenth-century  importation  into  the 
language.  Though  to  some  extent  it  has  re- 
placed the  original  form  quire,  it  has  invariably 
retained  the  pronunciation  of  that  word. 

Finally,   there   are   the   two   sounds   specified 
i86 


SPELLING    REFORM 

above,  as  denoted  by  the  s  of  pleasure  and  the 
sh  of  ship.  The  former  has  a  respectable  num- 
ber of  signs  to  indicate  it.  Besides  the  5  found 
in  such  words  as  measure,  usury,  enclosure,  it 
is  represented  by  si,  as  seen  in  decision,  evasion, 
occasion;  by  z,  as  in  azure,  razure,  seizure;  by  zi, 
as  in  glazier,  grazier,  vizier.  It  is,  however,  the 
second  of  these  sounds  that  has  the  greatest 
variety  of  signs  to  denote  it.  In  this  respect  it 
rivals  many  of  the  vowels  or  vowel  combina- 
tions, and  surpasses  some  of  them.  It  is  heard 
in  the  ce  of  ocean,  and  in  particular  in  no  small 
number  of  words  mainly  scientific,  with  the 
ending  aceous,  such  as  cretaceous  and  cetaceous; 
in  the  ci  of  words  like  social,  gracious,  suspicion; 
in  the  5  of  sure,  sugar,  censure,  nauseate;  in  the 
t  of  satiate,  expatiate,  substantiate;  in  the  ii  of 
martial,  patient,  nation,  and  the  vast  number  of 
words  which  have  the  termination  tion ;  in  xi 
in  anxious,  obnoxious,  complexion;  in  sci  in  con- 
science, prescience;  in  si,  as  seen  in  no  small  num- 
ber of  words,  such  as  mansion,  vision,  explosion. 
Finally,  to  illustrate  the  confusion  which  in  the 
case  of  these  signs  has  been  still  further  con- 
founded, we  may  instance  the  ci  of  social  with 
the  pronunciation  just  indicated,  and  the  ci  of 
the  related  word  society  with  a  pronunciation 
entirely  different.  A  precisely  similar  observa- 
187 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

tion  could  be  made  of  ti  in  the  case  of  the  words 
satiate  and  satiety. 

Enough  has  certainly  now  been  said  to  put 
beyond  question  the  fact  of  the  irrepressible 
conflict  which  goes  on  in  our  language  between 
orthography  and  orthoepy,  and  to  make  clear 
its  nature.  The  treatment  of  the  subject  has, 
indeed,  been  far  from  complete.  Nothing  what- 
ever has  been  said  on  the  large  subject  of  the 
representation  of  sounds  in  the  unaccented 
syllables.  No  account  has  been  given  of  the 
usage  of  some  of  the  letters  or  combinations  of 
letters.  In  particular,  in  the  matter  of  doub- 
ling the  letters  both  in  accented  and  unaccent- 
ed syllables,  contradictions  and  incongruities 
abound  with  us  on  a  scale  which  ought  to  bring 
peculiar  happiness  to  those  devotees  of  the 
present  orthography  who  believe  that  the  worse 
a  language  is  spelled  the  more  distinctly  it  is  to 
its  credit.  Still,  of  this  characteristic  there  has 
been  no  consideration.  Furthermore,  page  after 
page  could  have  been  taken  up  with  illustrative 
examples  of  the  anarchy  of  all  sorts  which  reigns 
in  every  nook  and  corner  of  our  spelling.  We 
write,  for  instance,  knowledge  with  a  d;  but  the 
place  with  the  same  terminating  syllable  where 
we  go  presumably  to  acquire  it,  which  we  call 
a  college,  we  are  careful  to  write  without  a  d. 
i8S 


SPELLING    REFORM 

In  the  past  one  finds  at  times  the  forms  knowl- 
ege  and  colledge.  It  is  nothing  but  an  accident 
of  usage  that  we  are  not  employing  them  now 
instead  of  the  ones  we  have  adopted. 

It  would  be  easy  to  go  on  multiplying  exam- 
ples of  these  inconsistencies.  But  though  all  that 
could  be  said  is  far  from  having  been  said,  sure- 
ly enough  has  been  given  to  prove  beyond  pos- 
sibility of  denial  the  existence  of  the  chaotic 
condition  which  prevails.  Furthermore,  while 
the  subject  has  been  by  no  means  exhausted, 
the  same  statement  cannot  safely  be  made  of 
the  patience  of  the  reader,  to  say  nothing  of 
that  of  the  writer.  If  any  one  of  the  former 
body  finds  it  tedious  to  wade  through  the  ac- 
count of  the  situation  which  has  been  given 
in  the  preceding  pages,  let  him  bear  in  mind 
how  much  more  tedious  it  was  for  the  author 
to  prepare  it.  If  he  finds  it  exceedingl)^  tedious, 
let  him  take  to  himself  a  sort  of  consolation  in 
the  reflection  of  how  easily  it  could  have  been 
made  even  more  so.  Instead,  therefore,  of  com- 
plaining of  the  abundance  of  minute  detail 
which  I  have  su^jplied,  he  ought  to  be  thankful 
to  me  for  keeping  back  so  much  of  it  as  I  have 
done.  Moreover,  as  Heine  pointed  out  long  ago, 
the  reader  has  at  his  command  a  resource  to 
which  he  can  always  betake  himself  when  his 
189 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

powers  of  endurance  give  out.  He  can  skip. 
This  is  a  blessed  privilege  denied  to  the  writer. 
Incomplete,  however,  as  has  been  the  survey 
of  the  subject,  it  has  been  sufficient  to  give  a 
fairly  satisfactory  idea  of  the  way  in  which  the 
orthography  represents,  or  rather  misrepresents, 
the  pronunciation.  It  makes  manifest  beyond 
dispute  the  truth  of  the  intimation  conveyed 
at  the  outset  that  the  form  of  a  particular  word 
is  often,  with  us,  little  more  than  a  fortuitous 
concourse  of  unrelated  letters  in  which  neither 
they  nor  the  combinations  into  which  they 
enter  can  be  relied  upon  to  indicate  any  par- 
ticular sound.  In  addition,  hundreds  of  those 
which  appear  in  the  spelling  have  no  office  in 
the  pronunciation.  Genuine  derivation  has  led 
to  the  retention  of  some,  spurious  derivation  to 
the  introduction  of  others.  There  are,  conse- 
quently, few  of  the  common  words  of  our  lan- 
guage which  cannot  be  spelled  with  perfect  pro- 
priety in  different  ways,  sometimes  in  half  a 
dozen  different  ways,  if  the  analogy  be  followed 
of  words  similarly  formed  and  pronounced.  Our 
orthography  is,  therefore,  often  a  matter  of  con- 
tention and  always  a  matter  of  study.  Knowl- 
edge of  the  accepted  form  of  words  must  be 
gained  in  each  case  independently,  for  there 
exists  no  general  principle,  the  observance  of 
190 


SPELLING    REFORM 

which  will  guide  the  learner  to  a  correct  con- 
clusion. 

As  an  inevitable  result,  the  acquisition  of 
spelling  never  calls  into  exercise,  with  us,  the 
reasoning  faculties.  On  the  contrary,  its  direct 
effect  is  to  keep  them  in  abeyance.  The  ability 
to  spell  properly  is  an  intellectual  act  only  to  the 
extent  that  attention  and  recollection  are  in- 
tellectual acts.  It  can  and  not  unfrequently 
does  characterize  persons  who  are  very  far  from 
being  gifted  with  much  mental  power.  All 
who  attain  proficiency  in  it  are  compelled  to 
spend  time  which,  under  proper  conditions,  could 
have  been  far  more  profitably  employed.  There 
are  men  who  do  not  attain  it  at  an  early  age,  and 
some  even  who  never  attain  it  at  all.  Moore,  for 
illustration,  speaking  of  Byron,  tells  us  that 
spelling  was  "a  very  late  accomplishment  with 
him."  *  The  case  of  William  Morris  was  far 
worse.  This  poet  never  learned  to  spell  at  all. 
The  fact  is  recorded  by  his  biographer.  In 
speaking  of  the  beauty  of  his  handwriting,  he 
had  to  admit  the  failure  of  his  orthography  to 
reach  the  standard  set  by  it.  "The  subsidiary 
art  of  spelling,"  he  writes,  "was  always  one  in 
which  he  was  liable  to  make  curious  lapses.     '  I 

^Moore's  Diary,  vol.  v,  p.  249. 
191 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

remember,'  the  poet  once  said,  'being  taught  to 
spell  and  standing  on  a  chair  with  my  shoes  oE 
because  I  made  so  many  mistakes.'  In  later 
years  several  sheets  of  The  Life  and  Death  of 
Jason  had  to  be  cancelled  and  reprinted  because 
of  a  mistake  in  the  spelling  of  a  perfectly  com- 
mon English  word;  a  word,  indeed,  so  common 
that  the  printer's  reader  had  left  it  as  it  was  in 
the  manuscript,  thinking  that  Morris'  spelling 
must  be  an  intentional  peculiarity."  ^ 

The  ignorance  which  exists  in  regard  to  the 
orthographic  situation  is  bad  enough;  but  the 
superstition  which  has  been  born  of  it  is  still 
worse.  It  is  assumed  to  have  come  down  to  us 
pure  and  perfect  from  a  remote  past.  Hence, 
it  must  be  religiously  preserved  in  all  its  assumed 
sacredness  and  genuine  uncouthness.  Even 
improvements  which  could  be  made  with  little 
difficulty,  which  would  have  no  other  result 
than  bringing  about  with  the  least  possible 
friction  uniformity  in  certain  classes  of  words 
^these  slight  alterations  are  assailed  with  al- 
most as  much  earnestness  and  virulence  as 
would  be  encountered  by  sweeping  changes  de- 
signed to  make  the  spelling  really  phonetic. 

As  men  are  more  apt  to  be  interested  in  particu- 

'  The  Life  of  William  Morris,  by  J.  W.  Mackail, 
London,  1899,  voL  i,  p.  8. 

192 


SPELLING    REFORM 

lar  illustrations  than  in  general  discussion,  it  may- 
be worth  while  to  follow  up  the  survey  of  the 
situation  which  has  just  been  given  with  an 
account  in  detail  of  the  history  of  a  special  class 
of  words.  In  this  once  prevailed  the  tendency 
to  bring  about  absolute  uniformity.  The  move- 
ment was  arrested  before  the  desired  result  was 
attained.  It  left  a  few  over  thirty  examples  as 
exceptions  to  the  general  practice.  In  the  de- 
rivatives of  some  of  these  it  went  back  to  the 
regular  rule  and  consequently  contributed  ex- 
ceptions to  the  exceptions.  This  condition  of 
things  has  endeared  these  anomalies  to  the 
hearts  of  thousands.  The  class  itself  consists  of 
the  words  ending  in  or  or  our.  About  the  proper 
way  of  spelling  this  termination  controversy 
has  raged  for  more  than  a  hundred  years.  The 
examination  of  the  whole  class  can  be  best  car- 
ried on  by  selecting  one  of  the  words  belonging 
to  it  as  typical  of  all.  To  its  story  the  next 
chapter  will  be  largely  confined. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE    QUESTION    OF   HONOR 

WELL,  honor  is  the  subject  of  my  story," 
says  Cassius  to  Brutus,  in  his  effort  to 
persuade  his  friend  to  join  the  conspiracy 
against  the  dictator.  It  was  h-o-n-o-r  however 
that  he  spoke  of,  not  h-o-n-o-u-r.  So  the  word 
appeared  in  the  foHo  of  1623,  in  which  the  play 
of  Julius  CcBsar  was  pubhshed  for  the  first  time. 
Unfortunately,  the  spelling  of  Shakespeare  has 
not  escaped  the  tampering  to  which  that  of 
nearly  all  our  authors  has  been  subjected  by 
unscrupulous  modern  editors  and  publishers. 
Take  the  following  speech  of  Brutus,  found 
shortly  before  the  line  already  quoted,  as  it  is 
printed  in  the  original  edition: 

Set  Honor  in  one  eye  and  Death  i'  th'  other. 
And  I  will  looke  on  both  indifferently; 
For  let  the  Gods  so  speed  mee,  as  I  loue 
The  name  of  Honor,  more  then  I  feare  death. 

In  defiance  of  the  authority  of  Shakespeare, 
so  far  as  it  is  represented  by  the  folio  of  1623, 
194 


SPELLING    REFORM 

honor  in  the  passages  cited  above  appears  in 
modern  editions  as  honour.  This  spelling  did 
not  make  its  appearance  in  them  until  com- 
paratively late.  In  the  second  folio  of  1632  the 
word  was  still  honor.  So  it  remained  in  the 
third  folio  of  1663-64.  It  was  not  till  the  edi- 
tion of  1685,  the  last  and  poorest  of  the  folios, 
that  the  corrupt  form  honour  displaced  in  these 
passages  the  original  form  honor.  There  it  has 
since  been  generally,  if  not  universally,  retained. 
It  is  fair  to  say  that  in  this  method  of  spelling 
the  word  the  usage  of  Shakespeare  was  far  from 
invariable.  Either  one  of  the  two  forms  just 
given  seems  to  have  been  used  by  him  indiffer- 
ently, just  as  they  were  by  his  contemporaries. 
In  his  writings  honor,  either  as  a  verb  or  noun, 
occurs  very  nearly  seven  hundred  times.  Ac- 
cording to  the  sufficient  authority  of  the  New 
Historical  English  Dictionary,  the  spelling  honor 
in  the  folio  of  1623  was  "about  twice  as  fre- 
quent as  honour."  This  confirms  my  own  im- 
pressions; but  these  were  based  merely  upon 
the  examination  of  only  about  a  hundred  pas- 
sages of  the  seven  hundred  in  which  the  word 
occurs.  Furthermore,  Shakespeare's  practice 
varied  widely  in  the  use  of  individual  words  of 
this  class,  as  exemplified  in  the  two  poems  he 
himself  published.  Humor  appears  in  them 
195 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

twice.  In  both  instances  it  is  without  the  u — 
once  in  Venus  and  Adonis,^  once  in  The  Rape 
of  Lucrece.^  Such  also  is  the  spelHng  of  the 
word  the  two  times  it  is  found  in  the  Sonnets,^ 
but  there  this  fact  does  not  make  certain  the 
practice  of  the  poet.  On  the  other  hand,  labor, 
either  as  a  noun  or  verb,  appears  seven  times 
in  the  two  pieces  just  mentioned.  Six  times  out 
of  the  seven  it  is  spelled  labour.*  Color  also  ap- 
pears invariably  as  colour  in  the  ten  times  the 
word  is  found  in  these  same  poems. 

The  words  with  the  terminations  or  or  our 
number  now  several  hundred  in  our  speech. 
Many  of  them  go  back  to  that  early  period  when 
the  French  element  was  first  introduced  into 
English.  Many  others  have  been  added  at  vari- 
ous periods  since.  In  the  case  of  those  of 
earlier  introduction  both  terminations  are  foimd. 
Still,  it  is  the  impression  produced  upon  me  by 
my  comparatively  little  reading  that  there  was 
at  first  a  distinct  preference  for  the  ending  our. 
This,  if  true,  was  due  largely,  if  not  mainly,  to 
the  fact  that  it  reflected  more  accurately  the  then 
prevailing  pronunciation.     The  accent  fell  upon 

'  Line   850.  2  Ljj^g    1825. 

^Sonnets  91  and  92. 

*  Venus  and  Adonis,  lines  969,  976;  The  Rape  of 
Lucrece,  1099,  1290,  1380,  1506;    in  line  586  it  is  labor. 

196 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  end  of  the  word.  It  was  not,  as  now,  thrown 
back  upon  the  penult  or  antepenult,  with  the 
result  of  placing  only  the  slightest  of  stress  upon 
the  final  syllable.  However  this  may  be,  many 
words  were  once  often  spelled  with  the  termina- 
tion our,  which  have  now  replaced  it  by  the 
termination  or.  The  ryme-index  to  Chaucer's 
poetry  shows  that  he  uses  about  forty  words 
with  this  ending  at  the  close  of  a  line.  Some 
are  obsolete,  but  most  are  still  in  current  use. 
Among  these  latter  so  spelled  are  ambassadour, 
conjessour,  emperour,  governotir,  mirrour,  sena- 
tour,  servitour,  successour,  and  traitour.  These 
in  modern  English  have  replaced  the  ending 
our  by  or.  Again  other  words  with  this  same 
terminations  which  he  employs  have  now  sub- 
stituted for  it  er.  Such  are  reportour,  revelour, 
and  riotoiir.  In  truth,  each  one  of  the  words 
belonging  to  the  class  has  a  history  of  its  own. 
But  honor  is  in  most  respects  typical  of  them  all. 
Accordingly,  while  there  is  no  purpose  to  neglect 
the  others,  upon  it  the  attention  will  be  mainly 
fixed. 

It  was  in  the  fourteenth  century  that  the 
wholesale  irruption  of  the  French  element  into 
our  vocabulary  took  place.  But  before  the  great 
invasion  in  which  words  came  into  the  speech 
by  battalions,  single  words  had  already  entered, 
197 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

as  if  to  prepare  the  way.  One  of  these  earlier 
adventurers  was  the  term  under  consideration. 
It  made  its  appearance  in  the  language  as  early, 
at  least,  as  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  Unlike  most  of  its  class,  its  first 
syllable  demands  attention  as  well  as  its  last. 
As  a  foreign  word,  it  naturally  exhibited  at  its 
original  introduction  the  forms  that  belonged  to 
it  in  the  tongue  from  which  it  was  derived. 
There  was  no  prejudice  in  those  days  in  favor  of 
a  fixed  orthography.  Each  author  did  what  was 
right  in  his  own  eyes;  or  perhaps  it  would  be 
more  correct  to  say,  what  was  right  to  his  own 
ears.  In  the  Romance  tongues  the  hostility  to 
the  aspirate,  which  has  animated  the  hearts  of 
so  large  a  share  of  the  race,  had  caused  it  to  be 
dropped  in  pronunciation.  As  a  result,  writers 
being  then  phonetically  inclined,  discarded  it 
from  the  spelling.  Hence,  honor  presented  itself 
in  our  language  without  the  initial  h.  Its  first 
recorded  appearance  is  in  a  work,  the  manuscript 
of  which  is  ascribed  to  the  neighborhood  of 
1 200  A.D.  In  that  it  was  written  onur,  just  as 
hour  sometimes  appeared  as  ure.  It  hardly 
needs  to  be  said  that  the  vowel  in  these  cases 
does  not  represent  the  now  common  sound  we 
call  "short  m." 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  discover  the  motives 
198 


SPELLING    REFORM 

which  influence  men  in  the  choice  of  spelHngs. 
But  it  is  no  difficult  matter  to  detect  the  reason 
for  the  change  which  here  took  place.  Before 
the  minds  of  the  writers  of  this  early  period  was 
always  the  Latin  original.  In  that  tongue  the 
word  began  with  h.  Derivation  is  always  dear 
to  the  hearts  of  the  scholastically  inclined.  In 
those  days  it  was  only  men  of  this  class  who  did 
any  writing  at  all.  Hence,  both  in  Old  French 
and  in  Old  English,  it  was  not  long  before  the 
letter  h  came  to  be  prefixed  regularly  to  the 
word.  It  was  not  sounded.  But  it  was  soon 
adopted  universally  in  the  spelling,  and,  once 
established  there,  it  never  lost  its  hold.  In  the 
case  of  several  other  words  which  have  had  essen- 
tially the  same  history,  the  pronunciation  of  the 
aspirate  has  been  resumed  under  the  influence 
of  the  printed  page.  But  honor  is  one  of  four 
which  up  to  this  time  have  held  out  unflinch- 
ingly against  any  such  tendency. 

So  much  for  the  initial  letter.  As  regards 
the  termination,  the  word  made  its  appearance 
in  several  forms.  Only  three  of  them  need  be 
mentioned  here,  for  they  were  the  ones  much 
the  most  common.  These  were  honor,  honour, 
honur.  The  last  was  the  first  to  go.  It  left 
the  field  to  the  other  two  forms,  which  have 
flourished  side  by  side  from  that  day  to  this. 
14  199 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Were  I  to  trust  to  the  impressions  produced  by 
my  own  reading,  I  should  say  that  from  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  to  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  the  form  in  our  was  much  the 
more  common.  But,  in  the  New  Historical  Eng- 
lish Dictionary,  Dr.  Murray  asserts  distinctly 
that  ''honor  and  honotir  continued  to  be  equally 
frequent  down  to  the  seventeenth  century." 
One  accordingly  must  defer  to  the  authority  of 
a  generalization  which  is  based  upon  a  much 
fuller  array  of  facts  than  it  is  in  the  power  of  an 
individual  to  get  together. 

By  the  time  we  reach  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  especially  the  Elizabethan  age,  it  is  pretty 
plain  that  something  of  the  orthographic  contro- 
versy which  has  been  raging  ever  since  had  al- 
ready begun  to  make  itself  heard.  The  little 
we  know  about  it  we  learn  from  brief  remarks 
in  books  or  chance  allusions  in  plays.  The  dis- 
cussion, such  as  it  was,  seems  to  have  had  lit- 
tle regard  to  orthoepy,  but  was  based  almost 
entirely  upon  considerations  of  etymology.  It 
was  in  the  sixteenth  century  more  particularly 
that  derivation  began  to  work  havoc  with  the 
spelling.  Sometimes  it  simplified  it;  full  as 
frequently,  if  not  more  frequently,  it  perverted 
what  little  phonetic  character  words  had  pos- 
sessed originally  or  had  been  enabled  to  retain. 


SPELLING    REFORM 

For  the  classical  influence  was  then  at  its  height. 
Consequently,  a  disposition  was  apt  to  manifest 
itself  to  go  back  to  the  Latin  form  and  insert 
letters  which  had  been  dropped  from  the  spell- 
ing because  they  had  been  dropped  from  the  pro- 
nunciation. 

It  seems  inevitable  that  the  etymological  bias 
so  prevalent  in  the  sixteenth  century  should 
have  exerted  some  influence,  and  perhaps  a 
good  dea.l  of  influence,  in  causing  a  preference 
to  be  given  by  many  to  the  forms  in  or.  Old 
French  had  been  forgotten  by  the  community 
generally,  and  met  the  eyes  of  lawyers  only. 
Modern  French  had  not  then  so  much  vogue  as 
Italian.  But  Latin  was  familiar  to  every 
educated  man.  It  was  accordingly  natural  that 
the  vSpelling  of  the  words  of  the  class  under 
consideration  should  show  a  tendency  to  go 
back  to  the  forms  employed  in  that  tongue. 
This  inference  may  seem  to  be  borne  out  by  the 
few  specific  data  which  have  been  collected. 
In  the  case  of  Shakespeare  the  existence  of  a 
concordance  to  his  writings  enables  us  to  furnish 
certain  positive  statements  with  comparative 
ease.  Mention  has  been  made  of  the  fact  that 
in  the  folio  of  1623  the  spelling  honor  occurs 
twice  as  often  as  honour.  Of  course,  in  a  work 
printed  so  long  after  his  death,  this  is  no  positive 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

evidence  as  to  the  dramatist's  own  usage.  But 
whatever  preference  he  felt,  it  seems  right  to 
infer,  w^as  indicated  in  the  two  poems  published 
in  his  lifetime.  Of  these  the  proofs  must  have 
passed  under  his  own  eye.  In  The  Rape  of 
Lucrece,  which  came  out  in  1594,  the  word 
occurs  just  twenty  times :  in  seventeen  instances 
it  is  spelled  honor;  in  three,  honour.  In  Venus 
and  Adonis  it  is  found  but  twice.  In  both  in- 
stances honor  is  the  spelling  employed. 

A  generalization,  however,  based  upon  isolat- 
ed facts  is  always  liable  to  be  misleading. 
Whatever  value  attaches  to  those  just  given  is 
due  mainly  to  the  eminence  of  the  author. 
No  statement  of  universal,  or  even  of  com- 
mon usage  can  be  safely  based  upon  them.^ 
The  examination  of  other  books  would  in  all 
likelihood  show  divergence  in  many  instances 
from  the  practice  here  indicated.  Furtherm.ore, 
we  must  not  forget  that  English  orthography  is 
not  due  to  scholars  or  men  of  letters,  but  to 
typesetters.  The  spellings  found  in  any  book 
of  the  Elizabethan  period  are  as  likely  to  be 

'  In  the  original  edition  of  The  Rape  of  Lucrece,  hon- 
or is  found  in  lines  45,  142,  146,  156,  574,  579,  834, 
841,  842,  1031,  1032,  1184,  1186,  1190,  1201,  1608,  and 
1705;  honour  is  found  in  lines  27,  145,  and  516.  In 
Venus  and  Adonis  the  word  occurs  in  lines  558  and 
994,  both  times  as  honor. 

202 


SPELLING    REFORM 

those  of  the  printing-house  as  of  the  author. 
This,  in  fact,  is  not  unfrequently  true  of  our 
own  age.  It  is  Hkewise  clear  that  these  same 
printing-houses  exhibited  a  fine  impartiality  in 
the  use  of  these  terminations.  Volume  after 
volume  can  be  taken  up,  on  different  pages  of 
which  we  can  find  honor  and  honour,  humor,  and 
humour,  labor  and  labour,  and  so  on  through  the 
list.  In  truth,  the  book  would  be  an  exception 
where  absolute  uniformity  prevailed. 

An  interesting  example  of  this  variableness 
of  usage  may  be  observed  in  the  dozen  lines  in 
which  Shakespeare  dedicated,  in  1593,  his  poem 
of  Venus  and  Adonis  to  the  Earl  of  Southamp- 
ton. The  inscription  is  to  the  "  Right  Honor- 
able Henrie  Wriothesley " ;  the  address  itself 
begins  with  "  Right  Honourable."  Throughout 
these  few  lines  the  phrase  "your  honor"  occurs 
just  three  times.  Twice  it  is  spelled  honor, 
once  honour.  Modern  editions  entirely  ignore 
this  variation  of  usage.  In  every  instance  they 
insert  the  w  in  the  word,  thus  giving,  as  usual, 
to  the  modern  reader  an  entirely  false  impression 
of  Shakespeare's  practice. 

In  this  matter  the  only  incontrovertible  fact 

to  be  found  is  that  in  the  late  sixteenth  and 

early    seventeenth    centuries    both    honor    and 

honour  exist  side  by  side.     Which  form  occurs 

203 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

more  frequently  in  the  period  could  not  be  told 
without  an  exhaustive  investigation  of  its  whole 
literature.  As  a  result  of  my  own  necessarily 
incomplete  observation,  I  should  say  that  from 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  there 
was  a  growing  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  ending 
our  in  the  majority  of  dissyllabic  words.  This 
tendency  became  distinctly  stronger  after  the 
Restoration.  On  the  other  hand,  the  disposi- 
tion to  use  the  form  in  or  became  increasingly 
prevalent  in  words  of  more  than  two  syllables. 
To  both  these  statements  there  are  exceptions, 
perhaps  numerous  exceptions,  especially  in  the 
case  of  the  latter.  Individual,  preferences,  too 
counted  for  a  great  deal  in  an  age  when  the 
idolatrous  devotion  to  our  present  orthography 
had  not  begun  to  manifest  itself.  But  the 
statements  just  given  may  be  taken  as  a  near 
approach  to  the  truth,  if  not  the  precise  truth 
itself. 

Assuredly  the  tendency  to  use  the  forms  in 
our  increased  in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  This  was  true  in  particular  of  dissyl- 
labic words.  In  the  years  which  followed  the 
Restoration  it  seems  to  have  become  dominant. 
Such  a  conclusion  is  apparently  supported  by 
the  dictionaries  of  the  time.  Let  us  go  back 
for  evidence  to  our  title-word.  The  spelling 
204 


SPELLING    REFORM 

honour  is  the  only  one  authorized  in  the  dic- 
tionaries of  PhilHps,  Kersey,  Coles,  Penning, 
and  Martin,  which  appeared  during  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century  or  the  earlier 
part  of  the  eighteenth.  It  has  already  been 
mentioned  that  before  the  publication  of 
Doctor  Johnson's,  the  two  leading  authorities 
were  Bailey's  and  Dyche  and  Pardon's.  Of 
the  two,  the  latter  was  probably  the  less  widely 
used.  Bailey  gave  to  these  now  disputed 
words  the  ending  in  our.  He  did  not  even 
recognize  the  existence  of  that  in  or.  On  the 
other  hand,  Dyche,  in  the  case  of  certain  of 
them,  authorized  both  forms.  He  put  down, 
for  example,  honor  and  honour,  error  and 
errour,  humor  and  humour.  Furthermore,  in 
each  of  these  instances  he  gave  the  preference 
to  the  first.  Of  course,  he  was  not  thorough- 
going in  his  practice.  He  would  have  been  un- 
faithful to  the  national  spirit  had  he  been  con- 
sistent. Accordingly,  in  other  words  of  this 
class,  such  as  javor  and  labor,  he  recognized  only 
the  spelling  in  our. 

But  as  in  every  period  there  are  found  those 
who  cherish  with  peculiar  affection  whatever  is 
anomalous  or  incongruous  or  irrational,  and  cling 
to  it  through  good  report  and  evil  report,  so 
there  always  spring  up  a  pestilent  crowd  of 
205 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

men  who  have  an  abiding  hostility  to  whatever 
displays  these  characteristics.  The  attention 
of  certain  restless  beings  of  this  sort  began  to  be 
directed  toward  this  very  class  of  words.  By 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  their  in- 
fluence was  making  itself  felt.  A  perceptible 
disposition  was  manifested  to  do  away  with  the 
irregularities  that  had  come  to  prevail.  It 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  based  upon  any 
phonetic  grounds.  It  apparently  owed  little  or 
nothing  to  the  desire  to  conform  to  the  Latin 
original.  The  aim  seems  simply  to  have  been 
to  simplify  orthography  by  reducing  all  the 
words  of  this  class  to  a  uniform  termination. 
At  this  time  polysyllables  belonging  to  it — 
the  trisyllables  being  included  under  that  term 
— had  largely  come  to  drop  the  u.  So  had  a  re- 
spectable number  of  dissyllables.  Why  not 
make  the  rule  universal  ?  Why  add  to  the  dif- 
ficulty inherent  in  English  orthography  the 
further  difficulty  of  an  arbitrary  distinction 
which  serves  no  useful  purpose?  No  particular 
reason  seemed  to  exist  why  author  and  error 
should  be  spelled  without  u,  and  honor  and  favor 
and  color  with  it.  So  they  argued.  The  move- 
ment for  dropping  the  vowel  made  distinct  head- 
way; it  actually  accomplished  a  good  deal,  and 
might  have  accomplished  everything  had  it  not 
206 


SPELLING    REFORM 

met  the  powerful  opposition  of  Doctor  Johnson. 
In  1755  came  out  his  dictionary.  It  did  not 
drive  out  of  circulation  other  works  of  the  same 
kind,  but  it  largely  deprived  them  of  authority 
with  the  educated.  It  practically  gained  the 
position  of  a  court  of  final  appeal. 

Johnson  knew  very  little  about  orthoepy  and 
its  relation  to  orthography;  but  on  account  of 
the  deference  paid  to  him,  not  only  by  his  con- 
temporaries, who  knew  nothing  v/hatever  about 
either,  but  also  by  later  lexicographers,  espe- 
cially the  two  most  prominent,  Sheridan  and 
Walker,  his  work  is  of  very  great  importance  for 
the  influence  it  has  had  upon  English  spelling. 
Toward  most  of  what  he  recommended  a  sort  of 
religious  respect  was  soon  exhibited  by  many. 
This  attitude  may  be  said  to  have  characterized 
for  a  long  time  the  English  people.  He  set 
himself  against  the  processes  of  simplification 
that  were  going  on.  He  laid  down  the  dictum 
that  the  true  orthography  must  always  be  re- 
garded as  dependent  upon  the  derivation.  It 
nmst,  therefore,  be  determined  by  its  immediate 
original.  He  did  not  conform  to  his  own  theory; 
he  could  not  conform  to  it.  But  men  accepted 
his  assertions  without  paying  any  special  heed 
to  his  practice.  In  consequence,  his  authority 
exerted  a  distinct  influence  toward  retaining 
207 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

many  spellings  which  in  his  time  were  tending 
to  go  out  of  use. 

Especially  was  this  true  of  the  words  of  the 
class  under  consideration.  At  the  time  John- 
son was  engaged  in  the  preparation  of  his  dic- 
tionary the  forms  in  or  had  come  to  be  in  a 
distinct  majority.  Usage  was  variable,  it  is 
true,  depending  as  it  did  on  individual  likes  or 
dislikes.  But  on  the  whole  a  preference  was 
beginning  to  manifest  itself  for  the  termination 
or,  at  least  outside  of  certain  words.  Still,  it 
would  have  been  then  possible  to  bring  about 
uniformity  by  the  adoption  of  either  ending  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  other.  From  the  ortho- 
graphical point  of  view  of  that  period,  no  serious 
objection  would  have  been  offered  by  the  large 
majority  of  men  to  that  course  of  action.  But 
such  a  proceeding  would,  in  the  eyes  of  many, 
have  been  attended  with  one  fatal  defect.  It 
would  have  made  the  termination  of  all  the 
words  of  this  class  uniform,  and  therefore  easy 
to  understand  and  to  master.  This  would  have 
brought  the  result  into  conflict  with  the  cherish- 
ed though  unavowed  ideal  we  hold,  which  is  to 
make  the  spelling  as  difficult  of  acquisition  as 
possible.  In  this  feeling  Johnson  himself  un- 
consciously shared.  He  had  to  the  full  that 
love  of  the  illogical  and  anomalous  and  unrea- 
208 


SPELLING    REFORM 

sonable,  with  the  contributing  fondness  for  half- 
measures,  which  is  so  characteristic  of  our  race 
as  contrasted  with  the  French.  This  attitude 
was  reflected  in  his  treatment  of  this  particular 
class  of  words.  He  compromised  the  contro- 
versy between  the  two  endings  in  the  case  of 
about  a  hundred  of  the  most  common  of  them 
by  impartially  spelling  about  half  with  or 
and  the  other  half  with  our. 

Furthermore,  in  regard  to  the  particular  class 
of  words  under  discussion,  both  Johnson's  theory 
and  practice  must  be  taken  into  consideration. 
Between  these  there  was  wide  divergence,  and 
oftentimes  contradiction.  In  theory  he  set  him- 
self resolutely  against  the  efforts  of  those  who 
were  seeking  to  bring  about  uniformity.  He 
pointed  out  that  "our  is  frequently  used  in  the 
last  syllable  of  words  which  in  Latin  end  in  or, 
and  are  made  English  as  honour,  labour,  favour^ 
for  honor,  labor,  favor."  He  then  set  out  to  give 
the  reasons  for  his  own  choice  of  the  form  he  had 
adopted.  "Some  late  innovators,"  he  wrote, 
"have  ejected  the  m,  not  considering  that  the 
last  syllable  gives  the  sound  neither  of  o  nor  u, 
but  a  sound  between  them,  if  not  compounded 
of  both."  The  just  observation  contained  in 
one  part  of  this  sentence  is  rendered  nugatory 
by  the  unfounded  assertion  at  the  end  and  the 
209 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

extraordinary  conclusion  drawn.  Johnson's  ar- 
gument really  amounts  to  this:  Neither  o  nor  u 
represents  the  actual  vowel  sound  heard  in  the 
last  syllable.  In  each  case  there  would  be  only 
an  approach  to  it.  Therefore,  let  us  not  think 
of  employing  either  one  of  the  vowels  which 
represent  the  sound  only  imperfectly,  but  a 
vowel  combination  which  does  not  represent  it 
at  all. 

His  cautiously  guarded  utterance  shows  that 
Johnson  was  vaguely  conscious  of  the  weakness 
of  the  position  he  had  taken  if  not  of  its  ab- 
surdity. Hence,  he  felt  the  need  of  furnishing  it 
additional  support.  So  he  abandoned  phonetics 
and  resorted  to  derivation.  He  proceeded  to 
suggest  a  reason  which  since  his  day  has  played 
the  most  important  of  parts  in  all  the  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  explain  the  cause  of  the 
retention  of  our  in  the  spelling  of  these  words. 
"Besides  that,"  he  continued,  "they  are  prob- 
ably derived  from  the  French  nouns  in  eur,  as 
honeur  (sic),  favour."  Johnson  had  not  that 
courage  of  his  ignorance  which  distinguishes  the 
assertions  of  later  men  who  employ  his  argu- 
ment. He  spoke  hesitatingly  of  the  derivation 
as  a  probability.  As  it  was  erroneous,  this  course 
was  wise.  His  followers,  however,  from  that  day 
to  this,  have  invariably  stated  it  as  a  fact.     He 


SPELLING    REFORM 

repeated,  nevertheless,  his  general  view  in  the 
grammar  with  which  he  prefaced  the  dictionary. 
"Some  ingenious  men,"  he  remarked,  sarcasti- 
cally, "have  endeavored  to  deserve  well  of  their 
country  by  writing  honor  and  labor  for  honour 
and  labour.'' 

Such  was  Johnson's  attitude  in  theory;  his 
action  was  distinctly  different.  Like  the  rest 
of  us,  he  was  governed  entirely  by  sentiment 
working  independently  of  knowledge  or  reason. 
He  preferred  the  spelling,  as  do  we  all,  which 
he  himself  was  wont  to  use.  He  judged  it  to  be 
the  proper  spelling  because  he  was  familiar 
with  it.  The  utter  lack  of  any  intelligent  or 
even  intelligible  principle  he  was  actuated  by 
in  his  choice  can  be  illustrated  by  two  or  three 
examples.  Anterior  was  spelled  by  him  with 
the  ending  our;  posterior  with  the  ending  or. 
The  termination  of  interior  was  our;  that  of 
exterior  was  or.  This  is  not  the  reign  of  law, 
but  of  lawlessness.  The  only  explanation  I 
have  been  able  to  devise  of  the  motives,  outside 
of  association,  which  may  have  unconsciously 
led  him  to  adopt  the  ending  he  did  in  any  par- 
ticular case,  was  a  possible  feeling  on  his  part 
that  when  the  word  denoted  the  agent  it  should 
have  the  termination  or;  but  our  when  it  de- 
noted state  or  condition.     This  is  not  a  satis- 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

factory  reason  for  making  a  difference;  but  it 
has  a  glimmering  of  sense.  Yet  while  in  gen- 
eral this  course  is  true  of  Johnson's  practice, 
it  is,  unfortunately,  not  universally  true.  Stupor 
and  torpor  appeared,  for  illustration,  in  his 
dictionary  without  the  u;  while  on  the  other 
hand  with  it  are  found  ambassadour ,  emperour, 
governour,  and  warriour. 

It  is  certain  that  Johnson  himself,  in  the 
spellings  he  authorized,  never  conformed  to  the 
principle  of  derivation,  which  he  held  out  to  us 
as  the  all-sufficient  guide.  Several  of  the  words 
which  appear  in  his  dictionary  with  the  intrud- 
ing vowel  had  come  to  us  directly  from  the 
Latin.  Accordingly,  the  form  he  gave  them 
was  in  direct  defiance  of  the  principles  which 
he  had  laid  down.  Of  these  candor  is  so  strik- 
ing an  example  that  it  is  worth  while  to  give 
some  account  of  it  in  detail.  The  word  came 
into  our  language  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
but  as  a  pure  Latin  word.  When  used  in  the 
black-letter  period,  after  the  invention  of  print- 
ing, it  appeared  in  Roman  type,  to  indicate  that 
it  was  still  a  foreigner,  just  as  we  now  indicate 
a  borrowed  term  by  italics.  In  the  early  seven- 
teenth century  it  had  become  naturalized. 
Accordingly,  it  was  at  first  spelled  like  its  orig- 
inal.     About   the  middle    of    the   seventeenth 


SPELLING    REFORM 

century  u  was  occasionally  inserted.  This  way 
of  spelling  it  increased  after  the  Restoration. 
Necessarily,  such  a  usage  not  only  defied  but  dis- 
guised the  real  original.  For  a  long  time  the 
correct  and  incorrect  forms  flourished  side  by 
side.  It  was  Johnson's  adoption  of  the  ending 
our  for  the  word  which  fixed  this  erroneous  spell- 
ing upon  the  English  people.  Men  now  tell  you 
with  all  the  intense  earnestness  of  ignorance 
that  candor  should  be  spelled  with  a  u  because 
it  came  from  a  foreign  word  which  has  no  direct 
connection  with  it  whatever.  Yet  the  very 
same  men  who  insist  upon  retaining  a  w  in  honor, 
because,  as  they  fancy,  it  was  derived  from  the 
French  honneur,  cling  just  as  tenaciously  to  the 
form  candour,  and  will  cling  to  it  after  they 
have  learned  to  know  that  it  was  derived  directly 
from  the  Latin  candor. 

Not  only,  indeed,  in  his  preaching,  but  in  his 
personal  practice,  Johnson  may  be  said  to  have 
been  inconsistent  in  his  inconsistency.  Of  this 
there  is  a  most  singular  illustration.  In  the 
dictionary  itself  author  was  given  as  here  spelled. 
Not  even  a  hint  was  conveyed  of  the  existence 
of  another  form.  But  in  the  preface  to  the 
dictionary  this  same  word  was  employed  by  him 
just  fourteen  times.  In  every  instance  it  was 
spelled  authour.  Nor  could  this  have  been  the 
213 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

fault  of  the  type-setter.  So  far  was  it  from 
exciting  remonstrance  or  reprehension  on  his 
part  that  the  form  is  not  only  found  in  the  first 
edition  of  1755,  but  also  in  the  fourth  edition 
of  1773,  the  last  which  appeared  in  his  lifetime, 
and  which  underwent  some  slight  revision  at  his 
hands.  Had  Johnson  chanced  to  adopt  in  the 
body  of  the  work  the  spelling  of  this  word  as  it 
appeared  in  his  preface  to  it,  the  form  with  u 
would  in  all  probability  have  continued  to  main- 
tain itself.  Men  would  be  found  at  this  day 
to  insist  that  the  very  safety  of  the  language 
depended  upon  its  permanent  retention.  There 
would,  indeed,  be  authors  who  would  fail  to 
recognize  themselves  as  authors  unless  this  un- 
necessary u  was  inserted  into  the  word  denoting 
their  profession. 

But  though  the  weight  of  Johnson's  authority 
was  impaired  by  his  practice^  there  is  no  ques- 
tion that  his  words  did  more  to  prevent  the 
universal  adoption  of  the  ending  or  than  any 
other  single  agency.  For  that  purpose  they 
were  timely.  There  had  then  begun  to  be  some- 
thing of  an  effort  to  correct  certain  of  the  most 
striking  errors  and  inconsistencies  of  English 
orthography.  With  this,  Hume,  for  one,  sym- 
pathized. That  this  assumed  enemy  of  the  faith 
should  be  favorably  inclined  to  any  movement  of 
214 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  sort,  and  to  some  extent  should  conform  to 
it,  was  enough  of  itself  to  set  Doctor  Johnson 
against  it.  That  author,  in  the  first  edition  of 
his  History,  had  followed  what  was  then  some- 
times called  the  new  method  of  spelling.  As 
regards  the  particular  class  of  words  here  under 
consideration,  he  used  several  such  forms  as 
ardor,  flavor,  labor,  vigor,  and  splendor.  But 
Hume  had  no  vital  interest  in  the  matter.  His 
reason  told  him  what  was  proper  and  analogical; 
but  he  was  little  disposed  to  fight  convention 
on  this  point.  Therefore,  he  wavered  at  in- 
tervals between  spellings  which  he  recognized 
as  sensible  and  those  which  had  the  approval 
of  the  printing-house  and  consequently  that  of 
the  general  public.  "  T  had  once  an  intention 
of  changing  the  orthography  in  some  par- 
ticulars," he  wrote,  in  1758,  to  Strahan,  on  the 
occasion  of  bringing  out  a  new  edition  of  his 
History,  "  but  on  reflection  I  find  that  this  new 
method  of  spelling  (which  is  certainly  the  best 
and  most  conformable  to  analogy)  has  been 
followed  in  the  quarto  volume  of  my  philosoph- 
ical writings  lately  published;  and,  therefore,  I 
think  it  will  be  better  for  you  to  continue  the 
spelling  as  it  is."  ' 

'  Letters  of  David  Hume  to  William  Strahan,  Oxford, 
1888,  p.  27. 

IS  215 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

In  truth,  the  moment  that  Doctor  Johnson 
had  set  the  example  of  attacking  the  pestilent 
disturbers  of  orthographic  peace,  a  host  of 
imitators  were  sure  to  follow  in  his  footsteps. 
One  of  these  was  the  physician  John  Armstrong, 
who  dabbled  also,  to  some  extent,  in  literature. 
Among  other  things,  he  produced  one  of  those 
ponderous  poems  in  which  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury abounded,  and  with  which  the  extremely 
conscientious  student  of  English  literature 
feels  himself  under  obligation  to  strtiggle.  He 
also  tried  his  hand  at  a  volume  of  short  Sketches 
and  Essays,  as  they  were  called,  which  came  out 
anonymously.  Among  them  was  one  on  the 
Modern  Art  of  Spelling.  In  it  he  attacked 
with  vigor  the  so-called  reformers  who  were 
employing  the  forms  honor,  favor,  labor.  In- 
deed, he  apprised  us — what  otherwise  we 
should  hardly  have  known — that  there  were 
then  misguided  beings  who  threw  out  one  of 
the  vowels  in  the  termination  of  words  not 
belonging  strictly  to  the  class  we  are  discussing, 
and  wrote  neighbor,  behavior,  and  endeavur. 
Armstrong's  little  work  appeared  in  1757;  it 
might  have  been  written  yesterday.  It  dis- 
plays the  same  misunderstanding  and  miscon- 
ception of  the  whole  subject  which  characterizes 
the  men  of  our  day,  who  have  the  advantage 
216 


SPELLING    REFORM 

of  being  heirs  to  the  accumulated  ignorance 
of  the  past.  In  places,  too,  he  was  as  amusing 
as  they.  Nothing,  he  told  us,  did  so  much  to 
distinguish  his  own  "as  an  tmmanly  age" — the 
italics  are  his — "  as  this  very  aversion  to  the 
honest  vowel  m." 

Hume's  attitude  of  indifference  is  manifested 
in  his  comments  on  this  volume.  He  evidently 
considered  himself  as  one  of  the  men  aimed  at 
in  its  animadversions  upon  the  reformers.  In 
June,  1758,  he  spoke  about  the  work  in  a  letter 
to  his  publisher,  Andrew  Millar.  "  I  have 
read,"  he  wrote,  "a  small  pamphlet  called 
Sketches,  which,  from  the  style,  I  take  to  be 
Doctor  Armstrong's,  though  the  public  voice 
gives  it  to  Allan  Ramsay.  I  find  the  ingenious 
author,  whoever  he  be,  ridicules  the  new  meth- 
od of  spelling,  as  he  calls  it;  but  that  method 
of  spelling  honor,  instead  of  honour,  was  Lord 
Bolingbroke's,  Doctor  Middleton's,  and  Mr. 
Pope's,  besides  many  other  eminent  writers. 
However,  to  tell  truth,  I  hate  to  be  in  any  way 
particular  in  a  trifle;  and,  therefore,  if  Mr, 
Strahan  has  not  printed  of!  above  ten  or  twelve 
sheets,  I  should  not  be  displeased  if  you  told 
him  to  follow  the  usual — that  is,  his  own — way  of 
spelling  throughout;  we  shall  make  the  other 
volumes  conformable  to  it:  if  he  be  advanced 
217 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

farther,  there  is  no  great  matter."*  This  is  by 
no  means  a  soHtary  instance  of  the  way  in  v/hich 
authors  have  submitted  their  own  convictions 
to  the  practices  of  printing-houses  and  thereby 
caused  this  creation  of  type-setters  we  call 
English  orthography,  to  be  an  object  of  reverent 
worship  to  thousands,  who  contribute  large 
sums  to  convert  those  bowing  down  to  gods  of 
wood  and  stone. 

Great,  however,  as  was  Johnson's  authority, 
there  was  not  paid  to  it  at  the  time  unquestion- 
ing assent.  The  glaring  inconsistency  between 
his  principles  and  his  practice  made  many  indis- 
posed to  accept  him  as  an  infallible  guide.  Dis- 
sent came  from  two  quarters.  There  were  those 
who  accepted  fully  his  views  as  to  the  propriety 
of  following  the  form  of  the  assumed  immediate 
original.  These  not  unreasonably  looked  with 
disfavor  upon  his  dereliction  in  the  case  of  many 
words.  Among  the  recalcitrants  was  his  de- 
voted disciple  Boswell.  In  1768  this  author 
brought  out  the  journal  of  his  tour  in  Corsica. 
In  the  preface  to  it  he  expressed  the  feelings  of 
many  in  his  comments  upon  his  master's  course 
in    this    matter.     "  It    may   be    necessary,"    he 

'  Burton's  Life  and  Correspondence  of  David  Hume, 
Edinburgh,  1846,  vol.  ii,  p.  43.  Burton  changed  Hume's 
spellings  to  conform  to  modern  orthography. 

218 


SPELLING    REFORM 

wrote,  "to  say  something  in  defense  of  my 
orthography.  Of  late  it  has  become  the  fashion 
to  render  our  language  more  neat  and  trim  by 
leaving  out  k  after  c,  and  u  in  the  last  syllable 
of  words  which  used  to  end  in  our.  The  illus- 
trious Mr.  Samuel  Johnson,  who  has  alone  exe- 
cuted in  England  what  was  the  task  of  whole 
academies  in  other  countries,  has  been  careful 
in  his  dictionary  to  preserve  the  ^  as  a  mark  of 
the  Saxon  original.  He  has  for  the  most  part,  too, 
been  careful  to  preserve  the  u,  but  he  has  also 
omitted  it  in  several  words.  I  have  retained 
the  k,  and  have  taken  upon  me  to  follow  a  gen- 
eral rule  with  regard  to  words  ending  in  our. 
Wherever  a  word  originally  Latin  has  been 
transmitted  to  us  through  the  medium  of  the 
French,  I  have  written  it  with  the  characteristic 
u.  An  attention  to  this  may  appear  trivial. 
But  I  own  I  am  one  of  those  who  are  curious 
in  the  formation  of  language  in  its  various 
modes,  and  therefore  wish  that  the  afBnity  of 
English  with  other  tongues  may  not  be  for- 
gotten." 

Boswell  resembled  most  of  the  ardent  parti- 
sans of  the  ending  our  in  the  fact  that  his  curios- 
ity in  the  formation  of  language  had  never  been 
rewarded  by  any  intelligent  knowledge  of  it. 
The  k  was,  in  his  eyes,  a  mark  of  the  Saxon 
219 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

original.  The  only  comment  that  it  is  neces- 
sary to  make  upon  this  assertion  is  that  the  letter 
k  was  not  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  alphabet  any 
more  than  it  was  in  the  Roman,  from  which  the 
former  was  derived.  Hence,  as  has  been  already 
pointed  out,  monosyllabic  words  like  back,  sack, 
sick,  thick,  in  the  earliest  form  of  our  speech, 
ended  with  c;  and  if  we  were  really  so  devoted 
to  derivation  as  we  pretend,  we  should  have  to 
discard  the  k  from  the  end  of  monosyllables, 
just  as  we  have  from  the  end  of  polysyllables. 
Boswell,  however,  carried  out  his  views  to  their 
logical  conclusion.  Johnson  might  exhibit  the 
weakness  of  deferring  in  particular  instances  to 
general  custom;  not  so  his  follower  and  admirer. 
So  we  find  him  running  counter  to  his  master's 
teachings  by  using  the  spellings  authour,  doc- 
tour,  rectour,  taylour,  and  others  among  the  dis- 
syllables; and  among  the  polysyllables  there 
were  the  forms  professour,  spectatour,  conspira- 
tour,  preceptour,  innovatour,  legislatour,  and  a 
large  number  that  need  not  be  given  here. 

It  is  evident  from  Boswell's  protest  that  the 
disposition  to  drop  the  u  had  become  so  preva- 
lent that  there  was  danger  of  its  prevailing.  The 
aversion  was  increasing  to  the  use  of  this  very 
honest  letter,  as  Armstrong  had  called  it.  John- 
son's  authority  retarded   the  progress  of   this 


SPELLING    REFORM 

tendency,  but  outside  of  a  certain  limited  num- 
ber of  cases  did  not  check  it  effectually.  It  was 
not  long  before  the  vowel  was  pretty  regularly 
dropped  in  polysyllabic  words.  In  them  it  has 
remained  dropped  ever  since.  Few,  indeed,  are 
the  persons  who  can  now  be  found  writing  am- 
bassadour,  emperour,  governour,  oratour,  possess- 
our,  and  no  small  number  of  others  which  the  great 
lexicographer  insisted  upon  as  the  proper  way. 
Even  some  of  his  dissyllabic  words  have  gone 
over  to  the  form  in  or,  notably  those  which  had 
rr  before  the  suffix,  such  as  error,  horror,  and  terror. 
No  idea  of  the  strength  of  the  movement 
towards  uniformity  can  be  gathered  from  the 
dictionaries  of  the  time.  These,  as  a  general 
rule,  followed  Johnson  even  when  the  rest  of  the 
world  was  going  the  other  way.  Both  Sheridan 
and  Walker  stuck  to  the  final  k  long  after  nearly 
everybody  else  had  given  it  up.  The  latter,  in- 
deed, deplored  the  custom  of  omitting  it  because 
it  had  introduced  into  the  language  the  novelty 
of  ending  a  word  with  an  unusual  letter.  This, 
on  the  face  of  it,  he  said,  was  a  blemish.  Still 
less  did  the  lexicographers  represent  the  general 
attitude  of  the  time  towards  the  class  of  words 
here  considered,  especially  the  attitude  of  aristo- 
cratic society.  The  fortunes  of  two  of  these 
words,  in  particular,  on  account  of  the  frequency 

221 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

of  their  appearance  on  cards  of  invitation, 
reached  at  this  period  the  highest  social  eleva- 
tion. These  were  honor  and  favor.  To  spell 
them  with  a  u  became  and  remained  for  a  long 
while  a  distinctive  mark  of  rusticity  and  ill- 
breeding — not,  as  now,  an  evidence  of  imperfect 
acquaintance  with  their  history. 

On  this  point  we  have  plenty  of  unimpeach- 
able testimony.  The  dictionary  of  Walker,  the 
leading  lexicographer  of  his  own  generation  and 
of  the  generation  following,  came  out  towards 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  it  he  gave 
utterance  to  his  grief  on  this  very  subject.  His 
remarks  occur  under  the  word  of  which,  in  de- 
fiance of  general  custom,  he  continued  to  author- 
ize the  form  honour.  "  This  word,"  he  said,  "  and 
its  companion  favour,  the  two  servile  attendants 
upon  cards  and  notes  of  fashion,  have  so  gener- 
ally dropped  the  u  that  to  spell  these  words 
with  that  letter  is  looked  upon  as  gauche  and 
rustick  in  the  extreme.  In  vain  did  Dr.  John- 
son enter  his  protest  against  the  innovation; 
in  vain  did  he  tell  us  that  the  sound  of  the 
word  required  the  use  of  m,  as  well  as  its  deriva- 
tion from  the  Latin  through  the  French:  the 
sentence  seems  to  have  been  passed,  and  we  now 
hardly  even  find  these  words  with  this  vowel 
but  in   dictionaries." 

222 


SPELLING    REFORM 

But  Walker,  though  he  followed,  as  in  duty 
bound,  his  great  leader,  was  subject  to  qualms  of 
common  sense.  These,  when  they  occur,  always 
make  sad  work  with  orthographic  prejudices. 
When  he  looked  at  the  matter  dispassionately  he 
had  to  confess  that  Johnson's  arguments  in  be- 
half of  the  spellings  which  he  had  authorized  did 
not  impress  him  altogether  favorably;  in  fact, 
he  manifested  a  sneaking  inclination  for  the 
forms  without  u.  "Though,"  he  said,  "I  am 
a  declared  enemy  to  all  needless  innovation,  I 
see  no  inconvenience  in  spelling  these  words  in 
the  fashionable  manner:  there  is  no  reason  for 
preserving  the  u  in  honour  and  favour  that  does 
not  hold  good  for  the  preservation  of  the  same 
letter  in  errour,  authour,  and  a  hundred  others; 
and  with  respect  to  the  pronunciation  of  these 
words  without  u,  while  we  have  so  many  words 
where  the  o  sounds  u,  even  when  the  accent  is 
on  it,  as  honey,  money,  etc.,  we  need  not  be  in 
much  pain  for  the  sound  of  u,  in  words  of  this 
termination,  where  the  final  r  brings  all  the  ac- 
cented vow^els  to  the  same  level;  that  is,  the 
short  sound  of  m." 

The    fashionable    method    of    spelling    these 

words  prevailed  for  a  long  time.     The  behavior 

of  high  society  in  so  doing  stirred  profoundly 

the    deep-seated    conservatism    of    the    middle 

223 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

class.  The  great  founder  of  Methodisni  warned 
his  followers  against  this  vanity.  "Avoid," 
wrote  Wesley,  in  1791,  "the  fashionable  im- 
propriety of  leaving  out  the  ti  in  many  words, 
as  honor,  vigor,  etc.  This  is  mere  childish 
affectation."  Remarks  of  this  sort  availed 
nothing — at  least,  they  did  not  affect  the  right 
persons.  The  aristocratic  world  cared  little 
for  the  woes  of  lexicographers  or  the  denuncia- 
tions of  religious  leaders.  As  is  its  wont,  it 
went  on  in  its  usual  heartless  way,  paying  no 
heed  whatever  to  the  remonstrances  directed 
against  its  conduct  in  this  matter. 

The  practice  seems  to  have  continued  during 
the  first  third,  at  least,  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
As  late  as  1832  Archdeacon  Hare  denounced  it 
in  the  Philological  Museum.  Hare  was,  in  his 
way,  a  spelling-reformer,  and  drew  upon  him- 
self much  obloquy  for  the  orthographical 
peculiarities  he  adopted.  He  furnished  us 
himself  with  some  specimens  of  the  sort  of  ob- 
jections which  were  raised  to  his  efforts.  As 
might  be  expected,  they  were  made  up  of  the 
same  old  combination  of  virulence  and  ignorance 
with  which  we  are  all  familiar.  In  the  eyes 
of  one,  change  of  spelling  was  a  piece  of  impudent 
presumption.  In  the  eyes  of  another,  it  was  a 
piece  of  silly  affectation.  Or,  again,  it  was  a 
224 


SPELLING    REFORM 

mistaking  of  singularity  for  originality,  a  waste 
upon  trifles  of  attention  which  ought  to  be 
reserved  for  matters  of  real  importance.  What 
surprises  us  now  is  that  so  much  excitement 
should  have  been  provoked  by  alterations  so 
petty;  for  all  of  any  importance  that  Hare 
proposed  was  spelling  the  participial  ending  ed 
as  t  when  it  had  the  sound  of  /.  Thus.,  we  find 
in  his  writings  reacht,  vanquisht,  pickt,  supprest, 
rusht,  publisht,  and  no  small  number  of  similar 
forms.  These  he  defended,  as  it  was  easy  to  do, 
by  the  usage  of  Spenser  and  Milton  and  their 
contemporaries — even,  indeed,  from  the  practice 
of  the  comic  dramatists  who  followed  the  Res- 
toration period,  such  as  Congreve,  Vanbrugh, 
and  Farquhar.  That  petty  changes  of  this 
nature  should  have  been  regarded  by  educated 
men  as  serious  innovations  shows  how  all- 
extensive  had  become  with  them  the  ignorance 
of  the  history  of  their  own  tongue. 

Hare's  countrymen  ought,  indeed,  to  have 
been  reassured  by  his  other  spellings  that  there 
was  no  danger  of  immediate  ruin  to  the  language 
by  any  innovations  he  might  be  supposed  to 
favor.  The  truth  is  that  he  knew  almost  as 
little  of  the  real  principles  governing  orthogra- 
phy and  talked  of  them  nearly  as  much  as  did 
his  friend  and  fellow-reformer,  Walter  Savage 
225 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Landor.  But  however  perverse  were  his  vaga- 
ries in  other  matters,  upon  the  class  of  words 
ending  in  or  or  our  he  was,  unlike  Landor, 
eminently  sound.  Indeed,  he  was  more  than 
sound.  He  reintroduced  the  u  into  some 
words  of  this  class  where  it  had  at  one  time 
often  appeared  but  had  then  become  generally 
discarded.  He  trotted  out,  as  was  in  those 
days  almost  inevitable,  the  old  bugaboo  of 
derivation,  as  unconscious  of  its  erroneousness, 
scholar  as  he  v/as,  as  are  now  the  most  un- 
scholarly  who  persist  in  obtruding  it  upon  a 
generation  which  knows  better.  "  If,"  he  wrote, 
''honour,  favour,  and  other  similar  words  had 
come  to  us  directly  from  the  Latin,  it  might  be 
better  to  spell  them  without  a  u;  but  since  we 
got  them  through  the  French,  so  that  they 
brought  the  u  with  them  when  they  landed  on 
our  shores,  it  will  be  well  to  leave  such  affecta- 
tions as  honor  and  javor  to  the  great  vulgar  for 
their  cards  of  invitation." 

The  concluding  sentence  of  this  quotation 
shows  conclusively  that  with  people  of  high 
position — "the  great  vulgar,"  as  Hare  calls 
them — fashion  at  the  close  of  the  first  third 
of  the  last  century  still  dictated  the  use  of  the 
spellings  honor  and  javor.  Herein  Hare  was 
opposed  to  his  fellow-reformer  Landor.  "  We 
226 


SPELLING    REFORM 

differ,"  says  the  latter,  "  on  the  spelhng  of  honour, 
favour,  etc.  You  would  retain  the  u;  I  would 
eject  it  for  the  sake  of  consistency."  '  If  Lan- 
dor  can  be  trusted  to  have  given  a  faithful  pict- 
ure of  contemporary  practice,  this  method  of 
spelling  must  have  continued  for  at  least  a  score 
of  years  after  the  date  already  given.  In  1846 
came  out  the  third  edition  of  his  Imaginary  Con- 
versations. To  the  dialogue  on  language  which 
is  represented  as  having  taken  place  between 
Doctor  Johnson  and  John  Home  Tooke,  he  add- 
ed then  a  number  of  passages.  Among  them 
was  the  following: 

Tooke.  Would  there  be  any  impropriety  or 
inconvenience  in  writing  endevor  and  demeanor,  as 
we  write  tenor,  without  the  ti? 

Johnson.  Then  you  would  imitate  cards  of 
invitation,  where  we  find  favor  and  honor. 

Tooke.  We  find  ancestor  and  author  and  editor 
and  inventor  in  the  works  of  Dr.  Johnson,  who 
certainly  bears  no  resemblance  to  a  card  of  invita- 
tion. Why  can  we  not  place  all  these  words  on 
the  same  bench? 

But  fashion  comes  and  goes,  while  the  dic- 
tionaries are  ever  present.  As  a  rule,  lexicog- 
raphers are  a  timid  race  of  men.   They  have  little 

'  Imaginary  Conversations.  Archdeacon  Hare  and 
Walter  Landor. 

227 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

disposition  to  deviate  from  the  paths  marked 
out  by  their  predecessors.  Even  the  revision  of 
Dyehe's  work,  which  appeared  toward  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  discarded  his  alterna- 
tive use  of  honor,  to  which  it  had  once  given  the 
first  place,  though  at  the  time  itself  this  usage 
had  become  fashionable.  So  far  as  I  have 
observed,  the  only  eighteenth-century  lexicog- 
rapher after  Johnson  who  fell  in  with  the  cur- 
rent tendency  was  Ash,  whose  dictionary  first 
appeared  in  1775.  He  entered  separately  the 
two  forms  of  these  words,  giving,  for  illustration, 
honor,  color,  and  labor  as  "  the  modern  and  cor- 
rect spelling,"  and  honour,  colour,  and  labour  as 
"the  old  and  usual  spelling."  But  his  action 
availed  little  against  the  agreement  of  the 
others;  for  apparently,  with  this  exception,  the 
dictionaries  stood  their  ground  manfully.  Their 
combined  authority  had  necessarily  a  good  deal 
of  effect  upon  the  general  practice,  especially 
with  that  numerous  class  of  men  who  did  not 
feel  themselves  familiar  enough  with  the  subject 
to  act  independently. 

At  a  still  later  period  international  prejudice 
came  in  to  strengthen  the  disposition  in  Eng- 
land to  stand  by  the  letter  u  in  the  compara- 
tively few  cases  in  which  it  had  continued  to 
survive.  In  America,  Webster  had  thrown  out 
228 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  vowel  in  all  words  of  this  class.  In  so  doing 
he  was  followed,  half  apologetically,  by  Worces- 
ter. Their  agreement  had  the  effect  of  making 
the  practice  of  dispensing  with  the  u  almost  uni- 
versal in  this  country.  One  singular  result  of 
it  was  that  in  time  the  termination  in  or  instead 
of  our  came  to  be  considered  an  American  in- 
novation. To  this  very  day  the  delusion  pre- 
vails widely  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  that 
the  form  of  a  word  which  entered  the  language 
more  than  two  centuries  before  America  was 
discovered,  which  has  been  in  more  or  less  use 
in  every  century  since  its  introduction,  owed 
its  existence  to  an  American  lexicographer. 
Naturally  this  was  enough  to  condemn  it  in  the 
eyes  of  any  self-respecting  Englishman.  The 
belief  just  mentioned  has  been  a  very  real 
though  unacknowledged  rea.son  for  retaining 
in  that  country  the  termination  in  our.  Have 
we  not  been  told  again  and  again  in  countless 
English  periodicals  —  quarterlies,  monthlies, 
weeklies — that  Britons  will  never,  never  tolerate 
any  such  hideous  monstrosity  as  the  American 
spelling,  honor  ? 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  causes  which 

brought  about,  or  concurred  to  bring  about,  the 

reaction   in   this   matter  which   took    place    in 

Great  Britain,  there  is  no  question  whatever  as 

229 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

to  the  fact.  The  tendency,  once  prevalent  and 
steadily  increasing,  to  drop  the  u  from  all  the 
words  of  this  class,  as  they  had  been  dropped 
from  most,  was  effectually  arrested.  Even  the 
lexicographers  who  could  see  no  sense  in  the 
maintenance  of  this  inconsistency  in  the  spell- 
ing accepted  it  while  they  deplored  it.  After 
the  passing  of  Walker,  Smart's  remodelling  of 
his  dictionary  became,  in  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  leading  orthographic  au- 
thority in  use  in  England.  The  reviser  recog- 
nized the  absurdity  of  the  disagreement  which 
prevailed  in  the  spelling  of  this  class  of  words. 
Still,  he  saw  no  way  of  remedying  it.  In  de- 
scribing his  method  of  dealing  with  them,  he 
remarked  that  he  might  have  followed  Webster's 
course,  and  adopted  throughout  the  termina- 
tion or.  This  clearly  struck  him  as  sensible, 
but  he  as  clearly  felt  that  it  would  never  do. 
"Such,  however,"  he  wrote,  "is  not  the  practice 
of  the  day,  though  some  years  ago  there  was  a 
great  tendency  towards  it."  For  in  the  mean- 
time a  peculiar  regard  for  these  exceptions  to 
the  general  rule  had  sprung  up  among  the 
orthographically  uneducated,  a  class  to  which 
most  educated  men  belong.  These  exceptions 
were  not  very  numerous.  They  were  all  dis- 
syllabic words;  for  the  retention  of  the  u  in 
230 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  polysyllables  was  too  much  for  even  the 
Anglo-Saxon  love  of  the  anomalous.  Still,  for 
the  comparatively  few  exceptions  which  had 
been  saved  from  the  general  wreck  which  had 
overtaken  the  our  forms,  there  had  begun  to 
display  itself  that  peculiar  enthusiastic  zeal 
which  always  prevails  when  devotion  defies 
reason.  No  one  assuredly  can  maintain  that 
the  latter  quality  exists  in  an  orthography  which 
insists  upon  inserting  a  m  into  honor  and  with- 
holding it  from  horror. 

A  few  more  than  thirty  words  in  common  use 
have  partially  outlived  the  revolution  that 
has  brought  the  vast  majority  to  the  termina- 
tion in  or.  They  constitute,  in  consequence,  a 
limited  body  of  exceptions  to  the  general  rule. 
As  in  every  case  the  spelling  of  the  particular 
word  must  be  learned  by  itself,  they  together 
contribute  an  additional  perplexity  to  the  ex- 
isting perplexities  of  English  orthography.  In 
certain  cases  they  are  enabled  to  interpose  a 
further  obstacle  in  the  path  of  the  learner.  When 
he  comes  to  the  derivatives  of  several  of  them 
which  are  spelled  in  our  he  is  called  upon  to 
master  exceptions  to  the  exceptions.  In  order 
to  save  the  language  from  ruin,  he  is  assured 
that  he  must  be  careful  to  insert  a  m  in  clamor; 
but  when  it  comes  to  clamorous,  he  must  be 
16  231 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

equally  careful  to  leave  the  u  out.  The  same 
sort  of  statement  can  be  made  of  several  other 
words  of  this  same  class.  We  can  pardon 
laborious  from  labour.  But  what  excuse  can 
be  offered  for  writing  humour  and  then  humor- 
ous, odour  and  then  odorous,  rancour  and  then 
rancorous,  rigour  and  then  rigorous,  valour  and 
then  valorous,  vigour  and  then  vigorous?  Yet 
this  business  of  making  a  still  more  inextricable 
muddle  out  of  the  already  muddled  condition 
of  English  spelling  is  held  up  to  us  as  some- 
thing essential  to  the  purity  and  perfection  of 
English  speech. 

It  is  assumptions  of  this  sort  that  are  irritat- 
ing. In  an  orthography  where  so  much  is  law- 
less, there  is  no  need  of  becoming  excited  over 
some  particular  one  of  its  numerous  vagaries. 
What  is  offensive  in  the  spelling  of  honor  as 
honour  is  not  the  termination  itself,  but  the 
reasons  paraded  for  its  adoption.  A  man  can 
cling  to  the  form  with  u  because  he  has  been 
taught  so  to  spell  it,  because  by  constant  as- 
sociation he  has  come  to  prefer  it.  To  this  there 
may  be  no  objection.  But  there  is  distinct  ob- 
jection to  his  implying,  and  sometimes  assert- 
ing, that  in  so  spelling  the  word  he  is  upholding 
the  purity  of  the  speech.  This  is  to  give  to  his 
perhaps  excusable  ignorance  the  quality  of  in- 
232 


SPELLING    REFORM 

excusable  impudence.  His  fancied  linguistic 
virtue  is  based  upon  fallacious  assumptions 
which  are  themselves  based  upon  facts  that  are 
false. 

Even  were  the  facts  true,  they  would  not 
justify  what  is  inferred  from  them.  The  argu- 
ment for  insisting  upon  the  ending  our,  drawn 
from  derivation,  might  seem  to  have  been  fully 
disposed  of  in  the  account  of  the  introduction 
of  this  word  into  English,  and  of  the  various 
forms  which  it  then  assumed.  But,  in  spite  of 
the  poet,  it  is  error,  not  truth,  which  crushed  to 
earth  rises  again.  Men,  presumably  of  intelli- 
gence, continue  still  to  repeat  the  assertion  that 
the  word  should  be  spelled  honour  because  it 
came  from  the  French  honneur.  The  proclaim- 
ers  of  this  view  seem  honestly  to  think  that  the 
lives  of  all  of  us  would  be  irremediably  sad- 
dened did  not  the  presence  of  the  u  in  this  par- 
ticular English  word  remind  us  of  its  assumed 
French  original;  though  the  absence  of  the  u 
in  no  small  number  of  words  with  the  same 
termination,  and  having  essentially  the  same 
history,  does  not  seem  to  cause  in  any  of  us 
etymological  depression  of  spirit.  But  even  in 
this  instance  deference  to  derivation  manifestly 
does  not  go  far  enough.  If  we  are  to  write 
honour  because  it  came  from  the  French  honneur. 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

what  excuse  can  be  offered  for  omitting  the  e  ? 
Even  more,  what  excuse  can  be  offered  for 
omitting  one  of  the  two  n's  ?  Assuredly  there 
is  no  sacredness  belonging  to  the  vowel  which 
does  not  attach  also  to  the  consonant.  The 
happiness  of  the  devotee  of  derivation  would 
be  still  further  enhanced  by  spelling  the  word 
honnour;  in  fact,  in  the  sixteenth  century  this 
was  occasionally  done. 

The  real  objection,  however,  to  this  particu- 
lar argument  for  the  spelling  honour  is  that  it 
has  not  a  particle  of  truth  in  it.  It  is  based 
entirely  upon  complete  ignorance  of  the  facts. 
Neither  honor  nor  honour  was  derived  from 
homteur.  It  is  doubtful  if  that  French  form 
existed  when  honor  came  into  the  English  lan- 
guage. However  that  may  be,  such  was  not 
the  form  in  Anglo-French  from  which  the  Eng- 
lish word  descended.  In  that  it  was  sometimes 
spelled  honor.  From  it  so  spelled  came  our  one 
modern  form.  In  that  again  it  was  sometimes 
spelled  honour.  From  it  so  spelled  came  our 
other  modern  form.  The  English  word  had, 
therefore,  a  history  independent  of  the  French. 
Its  development  took  place  not  on  the  same  but 
on  a  parallel  line.  Under  these  circumstances 
there  is  something  peculiarly  ridiculous  in  the 
assertion  so  constantly  made,  that  if  the  u 
234 


SPELLING    REFORM 

were  dropped  from  honor,  the  history  of  the  word 
would  be  lost. 

There  still  remains  to  be  noticed  an  objection 
— the  utmost  strength  of  the  human  imagina- 
tion cannot  well  term  it  an  argument  —  which 
has  been  raised  against  the  spelling  in  or  in 
such  words  as  have  succeeded  to  a  certain 
extent  in  retaining  the  m.  It  is  that  a  change 
of  this  sort  is  certain  in  some  undefined  way 
to  ruin  the  nobler  sentiments  of  the  soul.  It  is 
conceded  that  the  u  contributes  nothing  to  the 
pronunciation  of  the  word,  but  it  conduces  to 
the  edification  and  spiritual  elevation  of  him 
who  is  particular  to  insert  it.  It  is  intimated 
by  such  as  take  this  view  that  it  is  not  those 
who  belong  to  the  cold,  proud  world  who  could 
share  in  this  sentiment  or  rather  sentimentality. 
Still  less  would  it  weigh  with  those  mechanical 
utihtarians  who  think  it  enough  to  be  guided 
in  their  spelling  by  sense  and  reason.  To  them 
no  ray  of  the  divine  rapture  has  been  im- 
parted which  transports  the  heart  of  him  who 
finds  his  whole  nature  expand  at  the  presence 
of  a  u  in  honor  and  javor  and  chilled  by  its 
absence.  Let  no  one  fancy  that  this  sort  of 
objection  is  too  ridiculous  to  be  advanced 
seriously.  There  has  not  been  a  discussion  of 
spelling  reform  in  modern  times  in  which  it  has 
235 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

not  been  brought  forward.  In  the  case  of 
those  who  have  taken  part  in  the  latest  con- 
troversy, I  have  already  expressed  my  unwilling- 
ness to  employ  that  severest  form  of  personal 
attack  which  consists  in  citing  their  own  words. 
I  shall  accordingly  confine  myself  here  to  some 
remarks  of  this  sort  which  were  made  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  In  1873  a  contro- 
versy was  going  on  in  England  as  to  the  proper 
way  of  spelling  the  or,  our  class  of  words. 
In  the  course  of  it  a  correspondent  sent  to  the 
periodical  entitled  Notes  mid  Queries  a  com- 
munication which  contained  the  following  ex- 
alted sentiments: 

"  I  think  that  honour  has  a  more  noble  and 
favour  a  more  obliging  look  than  honor  and 
favor.  Horwr  seems  to  me  to  do  just  his  duty 
and  nothing  more;  favor  to  qualify  his  kind 
deed  with  an  air  of  coldness.  Odor,  again,  may 
be  a  fit  term  for  a  chemical  distillation;  but  a 
whole  May  garden  comes  before  me  in  the  word 
odour.'' 

The  lover  of  the  classics  must  always  feel  a 
sense  of  regret  that  Cicero  and  Virgil  and  Horace 
were  denied  by  the  spelling  prevailing  in  their 
tongue  the  opportunity  of  enjoying  this  May 
garden,  so  cheaply  secured  for  this  sentimental 
Englishman  by  spelling  odor  with  a  u.  It  is  al- 
236 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ways  unfortunate  when  the  sense  of  largeness  of 
soul  can  only  be  developed  at  the  expense  of  in- 
tellect. Fanciful  notions  like  the  one  just  cited 
can  never  be  dispelled  by  argument,  as  reason 
plays  no  part  in  bringing  them  into  being.  As 
to  association  alone  they  OAve  their  creation,  so 
to  association  alone  will  they  owe  their  de- 
struction. 


CHAPTER   V 

METHODS    OF    RELIEF 

HE  who  has  taken  the  pains  to  master  the 
details  given  in  the  chapter  on  EngHsh 
sounds  and  the  signs  which  are  intended  to 
represent  them,  will  have  received  some  con- 
ception of  the  nature  of  the  orthographic  slough 
in.  which  we  are  wallowing,  and  also  of  the  dif- 
ficulty which  exists  of  getting  out  of  it.  He 
will  recognize  that  the  obstacles  which  stand  in 
the  way  of  the  reform,  of  English  spelling  are  not 
merely  greater  in  number  but  are  harder  to  over- 
come than  those  which  beset  any  other  cultivat- 
ed tongue  of  modern  Europe.  Incomplete  as 
is  the  survey,  it  is  a  melancholy  picture  which 
it  presents.  To  him.  who  has  not  become  so 
accustomed  to  disorder  that  he  has  learned  to 
love  it  for  its  own  sake,  the  view  is  distinctly 
disheartening.  The  present  orthography  ful- 
fills neither  its  legitimate  office  of  denoting 
pronunciation  nor  its  illegitimiate  one  of  dis- 
closing derivation.  It  is  consistent  only  in 
238 


SPELLING    REFORM 

inconsistency.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  con- 
sider here  how  this  state  of  things  came  about. 
It  is  enough  to  know  that  it  exists.  A  thorough- 
going reform  of  Enghsli  orthography  v/ould 
therefore  be  one  of  the  most  gigantic  of  enter- 
prises, even  if  men  were  fully  informed  about 
it  and  their  hearts  were  set  upon  it.  But  a 
distinct  majority  of  the  educated  class,  though 
not  educated  on  this  subject,  are  opposed  to  it. 
Naturally  the  profounder  their  ignorance,  the 
more  intense  is  their  hostility.  It  is  no  w^onder, 
therefore,  that  many,  in  contemplating  this 
dead-weight  of  prejudice  that  must  be  unloaded, 
have  come  to  despair  of  the  language  ever  being 
relieved  in  the  slightest  of  the  burden. 

Let  it  be  assumed,  however,  for  the  sake  of 
the  argument,  that  a  general  agreement  exists 
that  a  reform  of  some  kind  is  regarded  not 
merely  as  desirable,  but  as  practicable.  At  once 
arises  the  question:  What  shall  be  its  nature? 
How  far  shall  it  be  carried?  Two  courses  are 
clearly  open.  One  is  to  make  a  thorough- 
going reform  of  English  orthography  in  order  to 
have  it  accord  wdth  a  genuine  phonetic  ideal,  so 
that  when  a  man  sees  a  word  he  will  know 
how  to  pronounce  it,  and  when  he  hears  a  word 
he  will  know  how  to  spell  it.  Then  harmony 
between  orthography  and  orthoepy  will  be 
239 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

complete.  Now  there  is  certainly  nothing  either 
irrational  or  of  itself  offensive  in  the  idea,  what- 
ever opinion  we  may  hold  as  to  the  practi- 
cability or  desirability  of  its  attainment.  Were 
we  starting  out  to  create  a  brand-new  language, 
it  is  not  likely  that  any  one  would  be  found 
wrong-headed  or  muddle-headed  enough  to 
look  upon  such  an  aim  as  improper  or  unwise. 
But  conceding  this  ideal  to  be  incapable  of 
realization  in  the  present  state  of  public  opinion, 
there  is  presented  to  our  consideration  the  other 
course.  This  is  to  reduce  the  existing  anomalies 
in  our  spelling,  serving  no  use  and  displaying 
no  sense,  to  the  lowest  possible  number;  to  dis- 
card from  words  their  unneeded  and  misleading 
letters;  to  bring  all  the  words  of  the  same 
general  class  under  the  operation  of  phonetic 
law,  so  as  to  produce  uniformity  where  an  un- 
intelligible diversity  now  prevails.  These  are 
distinct  objects.  They  constitute  two  separate 
movements  which  may  be  characterized  by  a 
slight  difference  in  the  wording.  One  is  reform 
of  English  orthography;  the  other  is  reform  in 
English  orthography. 

There  have  been  in  the  past,  and  are  likely 
to  be  in  the  future,  many  attempts  at  solving 
the   perplexing   problems   involved   in   the   fur- 
therance of  the  first  of  these  two  movements. 
240 


SPELLING    REFORM 

Some  of  them  have  been  logical  and  consistent 
throughout.  But  one  difficulty  there  is  which 
has  stood  in  the  way  of  their  acceptance.  It 
will  for  a  long  time  to  come  stand  in  the  way. 
They  must  necessarily  be  addressed  to  genera- 
tions which  have  not  even  an  elementary  con- 
ception of  what  the  sounds  of  the  language  are, 
what  are  their  real  values,  and  what  is  the  proper 
way  of  representing  these  values.  As  language 
is  now  learned  full  as  much  by  the  eye  as  by  the 
ear,  if  not,  indeed,  more  so,  the  form  of  the  word 
as  it  is  spelled,  not  as  it  is  pronounced,  becomes 
what  is  associated  in  the  common  mind  with  the 
word  itself.  In  modern  times  this  has  begot 
an  unreasoning  devotion.  Accordingly,  as  dif- 
ference in  a  hitherto  unheard  method  of  pro- 
nunciation has  always  affected  men  by  the  mere 
sound  of  it,  so  does  now  a  new  spelling  affect 
them  by  the  sight  of  it.  It  arrests  the  attention 
of  all.  Of  some  it  excites  the  resentment;  to 
others  it  almost  causes  convulsions  of  agony. 
Hence,  those  who  advocate  a  pure  phonetic 
spelling — in  itself  the  only  strictly  rational 
method — are  holding  forth  a  counsel  of  per- 
fection to  a  body  of  persons  who  are  so  steeped 
in  orthographic  iniquity  that  they  have  come  to 
think  it  the  natural  condition  of  the  race.  This 
is  a  situation  which  has  to  be  recognized. 
241 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Therefore,  in  the  present  state  of  public  opinion, 
largely  unintelligent  and  hostile  in  proportion 
to  its  lack  of  intelligence,  it  seems  to  me  that 
reform  of  English  orthography— using  the  dis- 
tinction just  made — is  not  practicable.  We 
must  content  ourselves  with  reform  hi  English 
orthography,  imperfect  and  unsatisfactory  in 
many  particulars  as  it  necessarily  must  be. 
Still,  the  middling  possible  is  better  than  the 
ideally  unattainable. 

In  a  certain  sense  the  latter  course  is,  or  ought 
to  be,  included  in  the  former.  Any  reform  in 
English  orthography  which  conflicts  with  the 
ideal  of  reform  of  English  orthography  is  not 
really  a  reform  at  all.  It  is  nothing  more  than  a 
temporary  makeshift  which  puts  an  obstacle 
in  the  way  of  proper  future  effort.  A  piece- 
meal restoration  of  anything  which  is  not  in  full 
conformity  with  the  just  restoration  of  the  whole 
will  do  more  than  leave  something  to  be  desired. 
It  will  introduce  much  to  be  deprecated.  Any 
process  of  simplification  in  a  language  whose 
spelling  is  so  inherently  vicious  as  ours  is  sure 
to  be  attended  with  inconsistencies.  In  any 
partial  reform  there  will  always  arise  exceptions 
which  can  never  be  swept  away  until  that 
thorough-going  reform  is  made  for  which  the 
public  mind  is  not  prepared.     These  exceptions 

242 


SPELLING    REFORM 

will  be  seized  upon  and  triumphantly  paraded 
by  the  opponents  of  change  as  proof  that  as 
the  reform  proposed  cannot  be  made  perfect  at 
once,  it  ought  not  to  be  begun  at  all.  There 
would  be  truth  in  the  last  contention  if  the 
alterations  recommended  were  not,  as  far  as 
they  go,  in  full  conformity  with  that  phonetic 
ideal  which,  though  we  shall  never  reach,  we 
ought  always  to  keep  in  view.  The  one  essential 
thing  to  be  insisted  upon  in  the  reform  in  Eng- 
lish orthography  is  that  it  shall  follow  the  path 
of  reform  of  English  orthography,  no  matter 
how  far  it  may  lag  behind  it.  There  should  be 
no  resort  to  temporary  expedients  which  result 
in  bringing  out  about  a  mere  external  uni- 
formity at  the  cost  of  sacrificing  the  principle 
that  the  spelling  should  represent  the  sound. 
Furthermore,  it  must  not  bow  down  to  the 
false  god  of  derivation  when  such  a  course 
brings  the  form  of  the  word  into  conflict  with 
its  pronunciation. 

Much,  indeed,  of  the  discredit  and  ill  success 
which  have  attended  previous  efforts  in  behalf 
of  spelling  reform  have  been  due  to  the  im- 
perfect knowledge  and  erroneous  action  of 
those  who  have  undertaken  them.  They  saw 
that  there  was  an  evil ;  they  did  not  see  what  the 
nature  of  the  evil  was.  Hence,  they  adopted 
243 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

wrong  methods  of  relief.  They  did  not  propose 
their  half -measures  as  preparations  for  some- 
thing better.  They  looked  upon  them  as  final 
in  themselves.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that 
reform  of  this  particular  kind  could  never 
be  pressed  consciously  as  reform  until  after 
uniformity  of  spelling  had  practically  been 
established.  Consequently,  changes  in  orthog- 
raphy, as  distinguished  from  change  of  orthog- 
raphy, can  hardly  be  said  to  go  back  to  an 
early  period.  Nearly  all  noteworthy  attempts 
of  the  sort  took  place  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century  or  the  former  half  of  the 
nineteenth.  Johnson's  method  of  speUing  was 
felt,  especially  in  the  earlier  of  these  two  periods, 
more  than  it  was  later,  as  a  tyranny.  It  was 
still  so  new  that  all  had  not  become  used  to  it, 
and  none  had  learned  to  love  it  with  the  gush- 
ing affection  of  our  time.  Many  there  were 
who  still  remembered  the  former  state  of  free- 
dom. A  few  were  found  who  sought  to  set  up 
rival  thrones  of  their  own.  The  crotchets, 
moreover,  in  which  individual  writers  indulged 
have  been  numberless.  In  the  vast  majority 
of  cases  the  changes  proposed  by  them  have 
been  based  upon  no  scientific  principles.  Still 
less  have  they  been  the  product  of  any  thorough- 
ly worked-out  theory.  Accordingly,  they  have 
244 


SPELLING    REFORM 

served  little  other  purpose  than  to  arrest 
momentarily  the  attention  of  the  curious,  and 
have  had  absolutely  no  influence  whatever 
upon  the  orthography  generally  received. 

In  truth,  many  of  these  attempts  at  reform 
have  been  worse  than  partial.  They  have  been 
merely  in  the  direction  of  a  mechanical  uni- 
formity which  was  not  based  in  the  slightest 
upon  the  nature  of  things.  One  illustration  of 
this  effort  to  bring  about  change  which  was  not 
improvement  can  be  found  in  the  alterations 
proposed  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
by  Joseph  Ritson.  To  scholars  Ritson  is  well 
known  as  the  fiercest  of  antiquaries,  who  loved 
accuracy  with  the  same  passion  with  which 
other  men  love  persons,  and  who  hated  a  mis- 
take, whether  arising  from  ignorance  or  in- 
advertence, as  a  saint  might  hate  a  deliberate 
lie.  He  is  equally  well  known  for  his  devotion 
to  a  vegetable  diet,  and  also  for  the  manifesta- 
tion, noticeable  in  others  so  addicted,  of  a  blood- 
thirstiness  of  disposition  in  his  criticism  which 
the  most  savage  of  carnivorous  feeders  might 
have  contemplated  with  envy.  The  alterations 
he  proposed  and  carried  out  in  his  published 
works  tended  in  certain  ways  toward  formal 
regularity;  but  they  also  tended  to  make  the 
divergence  between  the  spelling  and  the  pro- 
245 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

nunciation  still  wider.  For  instance,  the  so- 
called  regular  verb  in  our  tongue  adds  ed  to 
form  the  preterite.  Ritson  made  the  general 
rule  universal.  He  appended  the  termination 
also  to  verbs  ending  in  e.  Accordingly  the  past 
tense,  for  illustration,  of  love,  oblige,  and  sur- 
prise appeared  as  loveed,  obligeed,  and  sur- 
priseed.  As  nobody  pronounces  the  one  e 
which  already  exists  in  these  preterites,  the  in- 
sertion of  another  unnecessary  letter  could  have 
only  the  effect  of  adding  an  extra  weight  to  the 
burden  which  these  unfortunate  words  were 
carrying  as  it  was. 

There  were  other  changes  proposed  by  Ritson. 
None  were  so  bad  as  this,  but  they  were  all 
valueless.  He  himself,  however,  was  too 
thoroughly  honest  a  man  to  pretend  that  he  had 
arrived  at  any  knowledge  of  the  principles 
which  underlie  the  reconstruction  of  our  or- 
thography. He  appears  at  last  to  have  lost  all 
confidence  in  his  own  alterations.  Under  his  in- 
fluence his  nephew  had  also  been  affected  with 
the  fever  of  reform,  and  spelled  many  words  in 
a  way  different  from  that  commonly  followed. 
In  a  letter  written  in  1795,  Ritson  informed  his 
kinsman  that  he — the  latter — was  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  principles  both  of  orthography 
and  of  punctuation,  and  rather  wished  to  be 
246 


SPELLING    REFORM 

singular  than  studied  to  be  right.  "For  my 
part,"  he  added,  "I  am  as  little  fitted  for  a 
master  as  you  are  for  a  scholar." 

Such  changes  as  those  of  Ritson  provoked 
amusement  rather  than  opposition.  The  knowl- 
edge of  them,  indeed,  hardly  came  to  the  ears 
of  those  devoted  but  never  very  well-informed 
idolaters  of  the  existing  orthography  who  feel 
that  the  future  of  the  English  language  and 
literature  depends  upon  its  present  spelling, 
and  that  the  preservation  of  that  spelling  in  its 
purity,  or,  rather,  in  its  impurity,  rests  large- 
ly upon  them.  They  did  not  attack  Ritson 's 
views,  because  they  never  heard  of  them.  The 
changes,  again,  were  too  unscientific  in  their 
nature  to  be  worthy  of  serious  consideration 
by  him  who  had  the  least  comprehension  of  the 
real  difficulties  under  which  our  orthography 
labors.  Ritson  himself  lived  long  enough  not 
only  to  doubt  the  value  of  his  own  efforts,  but 
to  see  that  these  efforts  had  been  attended  by 
positive  pecuniary  disadvantage  to  himself. 
The  worship  of  the  orthographical  fetish  was 
then  well  under  way.  In  a  letter  to  Walter 
Scott,  written  in  1803,  Ritson  told  him  that  his 
publishers,  the  Longmans,  thought  that  the 
orthography  made  use  of  in  his  Life  of  King 
Arthur  had  been  unfavorable  to  its  sale.  Yet 
17  247 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

this  was  a  work  addressed  to  a  class  of  persons 
who  might  be  presumed  to  be  peculiarly  free 
from  prejudices  which  affect  so  powerfully  the 
semi-educated.  Such  a  fact  speaks  stronger 
than  volumes  of  dissertations  as  to  the  opposi- 
tion which  reform  of  spelling  must  overcome 
before  it  can  meet  with  any  sort  of  considera- 
tion at  the  hands  of  many. 

But  of  these  partial  reforms,  it  is  the  one 
proposed  by  Webster  that  is  most  familiar  to 
Americans,  and  perhaps  to  all  English-speaking 
readers;  for  the  storm  which  it  raised  was  vio- 
lent enough  at  one  time  to  be  felt  in  every  land 
where  our  tongue  was  employed.  Nor,  indeed, 
has  it  so  completely  subsided  that  occasional 
mutterings  of  it  are  not  even  yet  heard.  The 
Websterian  orthography,  it  is  to  be  remarked, 
is  found  only  in  its  primitive,  unadulterated 
purity  in  the  edition  of  1828.  All  the  dictiona- 
ries bearing  other  dates  than  that  must  be 
neglected  by  him  who  seeks  to  penetrate  to  the 
very  well-head  of  this  movement;  for  the  author 
himself,  or  his  revisers  for  him,  bent  before  the 
orthographic  gale,  and  silently  struck  out  in 
later  editions  every  method  of  spelling  which 
the  popular  palate  could  not  be  brought  to  en- 
dure or  inserted  everything  which  it  earnestly 
craved.  No  more  than  those  who  preceded  him 
248 


SPELLING    REFORM 

did  Webster  go  to  work  upon  correct  principles, 
even  when  looked  at  froin  the  point  of  view  of 
a  partial  reform.  One  main  defect  pervading 
his  plan  was  that  it  was  an  effort  to  alter  the 
orthography  partly  according  to  analogy  and 
partly  according  to  derivation.  He  could  not 
well  do  both,  for  they  often  conflicted.  Further- 
more, he  was  often  not  consistent  in  the  one 
and  very  often  not  correct  in  the  other. 

As  far  back  as  1806  Webster  had  published 
an  octavo  dictionary  of  the  English  language. 
From  that  time  for  the  next  twenty  years  his 
attention  was  mainly  directed  to  the  compila- 
tion of  such  a  work  on  a  large  scale.  He  soon 
found  it  necessary,  he  tells  us,  to  discard  the 
etymological  investigations  of  his  predecessors 
as  being  insufficient  and  untrustworthy.  This 
they  largely  were,  without  doubt;  but  by  way 
of  remedying  the  defect,  Webster  devoted  years 
to  getting  up  a  series  of  derivations  which  were 
more  insufficient  and  untrustworthy  still.  In 
the  process  of  doing  this  he  made  a  study  of 
some  twenty  languages,  and  formed  a  synopsis 
of  the  principal  words  in  these,  arranged  in 
classes  under  their  primary  elements  or  letters. 
The  results  of  this  study  were  embodied  in  the 
dictionary  of  1828,  and  the  orthography  was 
occasionally  made  to  conform  to  it.  Webster 
249 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

took  a  serene  satisfaction  in  these  new  spellings ; 
but  it  was  upon  his  etymology  that  he  prided 
himself.  In  his  view,  it  furnished  a  revelation 
of  the  hidden  mysteries  of  language  and  a  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  of  its  origin.  With  his  eyes 
intently  fixed  upon  the  tower  of  Babel,  he 
probably  never  felt  so  happy  as  when  he  fancied 
that  he  had  come  upon  the  trace  of  some  Eng- 
lish word  found  in  the  tongues  made  use  of  in 
the  courts  of  Nimrod  or  Chedorlaomer. 

It  is  a  hard  thing  to  say  of  a  work  which  has 
taken  up  no  small  part  of  the  lifetime  of  an 
earnest  student  that  it  is  of  little  value;  but 
there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  nearly  all 
of  Webster's  supposed  philological  discoveries 
were  the  merest  rubbish.  Necessarily,  inferences 
based  upon  them  in  regard  to  the  proper  method 
of  spelling  are  utterly  unworthy  of  respect. 
The  derivation,  indeed,  had  at  last  to  follow  the 
fate  which  had  overtaken  certain  portions  of  the 
new  orthography.  Its  retention  was  a  little 
too  much  for  later  revisers  of  the  dictionary. 
These,  in  the  edition  of  1864,  swept  away  at  one 
fell  swoop  into  the  limbo  of  forgettable  and  for- 
gotten things  the  fruits  of  twenty  years  of 
etymological  study.  Those  conclusions,  which 
in  the  eyes  of  the  author  had  given  him  the  key 
to  unlock  the  hidden  secrets  of  language,  are 
250 


SPELLING    REFORM 

no  longer  allowed  to  appear  on  the  pages  of  the 
very  work  which  perpetuates  his  name. 

The  changes  of  another  sort,  based  upon 
analogy,  which  Webster  introduced  with  the 
idea  of  making  the  spelling  of  words  uniform, 
were  liable  to  little  positive  objection.  Some 
of  them,  in  spite  of  violent  opposition,  have  in 
this  country  more  than  held  their  own.  The 
consequence  is  that  in  the  case  of  a  number  of 
words  in  common  use  we  have  two  methods  of 
spelling  flourishing  side  by  side.  This  is  a  state 
of  things  which,  it  seems  to  me,  every  one  who 
has  the  reform  of  our  orthography  at  heart  must 
contemplate  with  unqualified  satisfaction.  Not 
that  Webster's  proposed  changes,  even  had 
they  been  universally  adopted,  would  have  gone 
to  the  real  root  of  the  evil.  Far  from  it.  At 
best  they  merely  touch  the  surface  and  then 
only  in  a  few  places.  But  one  effect  they  have 
produced.  They  have  in  some  measure  pre- 
vented us,  and  do  still  prevent  us,  from  falling 
to  the  dead  level  of  an  unreasoning  uniformity. 
By  bringing  before  us  two  methods  of  spelling, 
they  keep  open  the  legitimacy  of  each.  They 
expose  to  every  unprejudiced  investigator  the 
utter  shallowness  of  the  arguments  that  are 
directed  against  change. 

But  slight  as  Webster's  alterations  were,  they 
.  251 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

met  with  the  bitterest  hostiUty  at  the  time  of 
their  introduction.  The  love  of  Uttle  things 
is  deeply  implanted  in  the  human  mind.  It  is, 
therefore,  perhaps  not  unnatural  that  the 
minor  changes  in  spelling  which  he  proposed 
should  have  met  with  attack  far  more  violent 
than  that  directed  against  his  tremendous 
etymological  speculations.  This  culminated  on 
the  publication  of  Worcester's  Dictionary,  which 
in  the  matter  of  orthography  followed  a  more 
conservative  course.  A  wordy  war  arose,  which 
lasted  for  years.  Combatants  from  every  quar- 
ter leaped  at  once  into  the  arena.  They  were 
easily  equipped  for  the  contest,  inasmuch  as 
virulence  was  the  main  thing  required.  In- 
tellect was  not  essential  to  the  discussion,  and 
knowledge  would  have  been  a  death-blow  to  it. 
The  war  of  the  dictionaries,  as  it  was  called,  is 
therefore  of  interest  to  us  at  this  point  of  time, 
not  for  any  principle  involved  in  it,  but  as  an 
illustration,  pertinent  at  the  present  moment, 
of  how  earnestly,  and  even  furiously,  men  can  be 
got  to  fight  for  a  cause  they  do  not  understand. 
There  is  no  doubt,  indeed,  that  Webster  laid 
himself  open  to  attack.  Perfect  consistency  is 
not  to  be  looked  for  in  this  world;  but  the  man 
who  sets  out  to  make  a  reform  in  English  or- 
thography as  contrasted  with  a  reform  of  Eng- 
252 


SPELLING    REFORM 

llsh  orthography  cannot  help  being  inconsistent. 
He  will  feel  obliged  to  retain  objectionable 
spellings.  He  will  even  feel  obliged  to  authorize 
some  that  are  inconsistent  with  his  own  prin- 
ciples, for  the  same  reason  that  Moses  tolerated 
divorce.  It  is  the  hardness  of  mien's  hearts, 
clinging  to  ancient  abuses  and  unwilling  to 
break  up  old  associations,  which  will  force  the 
reformer  to  accept  what  he  does  not  approve. 
Inadvertence,  too,  will  add  failures  of  its  own  to 
the  contradictions  involved  in  the  very  in- 
completeness of  the  scheme  which  has  been 
adopted. 

Both  in  respect  to  analogy  and  derivation, 
Webster  did  not  carry  out  the  principles  he 
avowed.  There  were  whole  classes  of  words 
which  he  hesitated  to  change;  at  least,  he  did 
not  change  them.  Of  these  half-measures, 
whether  due  to  oversight  or  to  doubt,  one  illus- 
tration will  suffice.  No  man  who  seeks  to  make 
orthography  etymologically  uniform  can  have 
failed  to  notice  the  difference  of  spelling  in  the 
case  of  words  derived  from  the  compounds  of 
the  Latin  cedo.  Three  end  in  eed,  six  in  ede. 
As  the  digraph  ee  has  practically  the  same 
sound  always,  the  former  termination  seems  to 
me  preferable.  But  laying  aside  personal  opin- 
ions in  the  matter,  what  sensible  reason  can  be 
253 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

given  for  writing  succeed  with  ceed  and  secede 
with  cede  J  Here  was  a  glaring  anomaly  which 
could  hardly  have  failed  to  escape  Webster's 
attention.  If  the  principle  of  analogy  met  with 
any  consideration,  this  demanded  to  be  re- 
moved, if  anything  did.  But  he  was  unequal 
to  the  occasion.  In  the  edition  of  1828  he 
spelled  exceed  with  ceed  and  accede  with  cede, 
which  every  one  does,  to  be  sure,  but  which  he 
personally  had  no  business  to  do.  In  con- 
formity with  his  avowed  views,  he  was  bound  to 
make  uniform  the  orthography  of  all  the  words 
which  come  from  the  Latin  cedo.  As  he  failed 
to  do  this,  he  subjected  himself  to  the  reproach 
of  not  having  acted  in  accordance  with  his  own 
principles. 

The  truth  is  that  analogical  spelling  occupied 
a  very  subordinate  position  in  Webster's  mind. 
His  work  is  mainly  deserving  of  notice  because, 
unaided,  he  chanced  in  some  cases  to  secure 
success  in  spite  of  virulent  opposition.  Its  chief 
value,  indeed,  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  kept 
alive  a  feeling  of  hostility  to  the  existing  or- 
thography of  the  English  tongue;  that  it  has 
saved  many  from  paying  a  silly  and  slavish 
deference  to  the  opinions  of  a  not  very  well- 
informed  lexicographer  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury and  his  successors;  that  in  the  matter  of 
254 


SPELLING    REFORM 

Spelling  it  has  inculcated  the  belief  that  there 
is  a  test  of  reason  and  scholarship  to  be  applied, 
and  not  a  mere  prescription  based  upon  igno- 
rance; and  that  by  these  means  it  has  given  to 
some  a  hope,  to  others  a  fear,  to  all  a  warning, 
that  however  long  Philistia  may  cling  to  her 
idols,  they  will  be  broken  at  last. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake,  however,  to 
assume  that  the  feeling  about  the  wretched 
condition  of  English  orthography  has  been  con- 
fined to  professional  reformers.  From  almost 
the  very  beginning  the  users  of  written  speech 
have  been  conscious  of  the  burden  they  were 
carrying.  It  has  certainly  lain  heavily  upon 
the  hearts  of  many  thinking  men  in  the  past, 
and  unconsciously,  perhaps,  on  the  hearts  of  all. 
But  this  feeling  has  never  been  translated  into 
successful  action.  In  truth,  men  believed  them- 
selves hopelessly  entangled  in  a  network  of 
anomalies  and  absurdities  which  hampered  all 
intelligent  proceeding.  Out  of  it  they  saw  no 
way  of  escape.  This  despairing  attitude  is 
plainly  apparent  in  the  comments  of  the  drama- 
tist Ben  Jonson  on  what  he  terms  our  pseudog- 
raphy.  In  speaking  of  the  digraph  ck  in  cer- 
tain words,  he  remarked  that  it  "were  better 
written  without  the  c,  if  that  which  we  have 
received  for  orthography  would  yet  be  contented 
255 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

to  be  altered.  But  that  is  an  emendation 
rather  to  be  wished  than  hoped  for,  after  so 
long  a  reign  of  ill  custom  amongst  us." 

Consent  to  be  altered,  the  language  never  did 
voluntarily.  There  is  nothing  more  absolutely- 
false  than  the  assertion  sometimes  made  that 
it  has  been  and  still  is  slowly  but  steadily  re- 
forming the  spelling  of  its  own  initiative.  Of  the 
usage  of  the  past  it  requires  peculiar  ignorance 
■ — though  of  that  the  supply  is  unlimited — to 
make  an  assertion  of  this  sort.  Everything  of 
the  little  which  has  been  accomplished  in  the 
way  of  reform  has  been  gained  only  after  a  bitter 
contest.  Undoubtedly  there  has  been  a  steady 
tendency  to  give  exclusive  recognition  to  one 
out  of  several  spellings  of  a  word  and  thereby 
produce  absolute  uniformity.  But  there  has 
been  no  disposition  to  make  the  spelling  better. 
Not  infrequently  the  worst  form  has  been 
selected.  Any  one  who  takes  the  trouble  to 
compare  the  orthography  of  the  seventeenth 
century  with  that  now  prevailing  will  have 
frequent  occasion  to  observe  how  slight  has 
been  the  tendency  toward  simplification;  that 
when  a  choice  has  lain  between  different  spell- 
ings, it  is  not  unusual  to  have  the  more  un- 
suitable one  preferred ;  and  that,  as  a  con- 
sequence, the  divergence  between  orthography 
256 


SPELLING    REFORM 

and  orthoepy  has  increased  instead   of  dimin- 
ishing. 

In  truth,  in  this  matter  we  have  often  gone 
back  not  merely  from  the  practice  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  but  from  the  more  rigid  practice 
of  the  eighteenth.  In  the  second  half  of  the 
latter  period  Johnson's  Dictionary  settled  the 
standard.  The  changes  which  have  taken  place 
since  his  time  have  all  been  haphazard.  They 
have  been  sometimes  for  the  better;  they  have 
as  frequently  been  for  the  worse.  Take,  for 
illustration,  catcall,  downfall,  downhill,  bethrall, 
miscall,  overfall,  tmroll,  forestall.  In  Johnson's 
Dictionary  these  appear  as  catcal,  downfal,  down- 
hil,  bethral,  miscal,  overfal,  unrol,  and  forestal. 
As  might  be  expected,  there  was  no  consistency 
in  his  treatment  of  the  terminations  found  in 
these  words.  While  he  spelled  downhil  with  a 
single  /,  he  spelled  uphill  with  two.  While  he 
spelled  install  with  two  I's,  he  spelled  reinstal 
with  but  one.  Contradictory  usages  of  this 
sort  are  liable  to  turn  up  anywhere  in  his  work. 
Reconcilable,  for  instance,  appears  in  it  with  an 
e  after  the  il;  irreconcilable  without  this  vowel. 
Naturally,  arbitrariness  of  spelling  of  such  a  sort 
tended  much  more  to  the  complication  of  or- 
thography than  to  its  simplification.  There 
was  sufficient  love  of  uniformity  in  our  nature 
257 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

to  reduce  many  of  these  variations  to  one  form; 
but  as  a  general  rule  the  form  selected  has  been 
the  one  which  carried  the  largest  number  of 
unnecessary  letters.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
word  fulness,  so  spelled  by  Johnson.  It  is  now 
often  written  fullness,  after  the  analogy  of  illness 
and  smallness.  But  there  is  no  consistency 
even  in  this  practice.  No  one,  for  illustration, 
now  spells  forgetfulness  with  two  I's,  though 
that  method  was  once  not  uncommon. 

In  fact,  on  no  side  has  any  rational  principle 
been  at  work,  or  if  it  has  shown  itself,  it  has 
never  been  allowed  to  carry  out  fully  the  results 
at  which  it  has  arrived.  Against  the  agencies 
which  have  tended  to  widen  the  gulf  between 
orthography  and  orthoepy  counteracting  in- 
fluences, indeed,  have  at  times  manifested  them- 
selves. Two  measures,  in  particular,  the  lan- 
guage has  unconsciously  taken  to  lighten  the 
load  under  which  it  has  been  staggering.  One 
of  them  is  a  natural  action  on  the  part  of  the 
users  of  speech;  the  other,  though  a  growth, 
partakes  of  the  nature  of  an  artificial  device. 
Both,  however,  have  exerted  an  appreciable  in- 
fluence in  making  the  spelling  indicate  the  sound. 
The  first  to  be  considered  is  very  limited  in  its 
operations.  In  ancient  days,  when  pronuncia- 
tion was  changed  the  spelling  was  changed  in 
258 


SPELLING    REFOR  M 

order  to  denote  it.  With  the  petrifaction  of  the 
orthography  this  in  time  became  generally  im- 
possible. Since,  therefore,  the  spelling  could 
not  be  altered  to  accord  with  the  pronunciation, 
there  sprang  up  a  tendency  to  alter  the  pro- 
nunciation to  accord  with  the  spelling.  Letters 
once  unsounded  came  to  be  heard.  Syllables 
previously  crushed  out  of  all  recognition  were 
restored  to  their  full  rights.  These  agencies 
never  have  exerted  and  never  can  exert  in- 
fluence on  any  large  scale.  Still,  they  have 
been  operative  in  Some  degree  and  continue  to 
be  active.  Accordingly,  when  the  disposition 
manifests  itself  to  bring  about  in  such  ways 
consonance  between  orthography  and  orthoepy, 
it  is  not  worth  while  to  make  now  any  change 
in  the  spelling.  A  few  examples  will  make  this 
point  perfectly  clear. 

Any  one  who  compares  the  pronunciation 
given  in  the  dictionaries  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  with  that  now  sanctioned 
by  similar  authorities,  will  be  struck  by  a  number 
of  instances  in  which  a  given  word  was  once 
not  pronounced  in  accordance  with  its  spelling, 
but  is  so  at  the  present  time.  Take,  for  illus- 
tration, housewife.  A  century  and  more  ago 
its  regularly  authorized  pronunciation  was 
huzzif.  This  continues  still.  Much  more  com- 
259 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

monly,  however,  each  syllable  which  enters 
into  the  compound  is  heard  exactly  as  it  would 
be  were  it  used  separately.  The  older  pro- 
nunciation has  mainly  died  out  in  consequence 
of  men  learning  the  language  more  through  the 
eye  than  the  ear;  though  in  this  particular  case 
the  degradation  of  the  word  to  huzzy  has  prob- 
ably contributed  its  aid  to  produce  the  result. 
Chart  will  supply  us  with  another  illustration. 
A  century  ago  it  was  frequently  pronounced 
cart.  Cognizance  and  recognizance,  too,  have 
now  taken  up  generally  the  sound  of  g,  though 
in  legal  circles  this  letter  still  frequently  re- 
mains suppressed.  Take,  again,  the  case  of 
some  words  in  which  qu  had  once  the  sound 
of  k  as  it  is  still  heard  in  etiquette  and  coquette. 
Walker  informs  us  that  in  his  day  harlequin 
and  quadrille  were  pronounced  har-le-kin  and 
ka-drill.  In  both  these  instances,  under  the 
influence  of  the  printed  word,  the  qu  has  gen- 
erally abandoned  the  sound  of  k  for  the  re- 
gular sound  which  we  ordinarily  associate  with 
this  digraph.  The  same  thing  is  going  on 
in  the  case  of  masquerade.  The  dictionaries, 
which  rarely  record  such  changes  till  they  have 
been  fully  accomplished,  give  us  no  intimation 
of  this  fact.  This  last  observation  applies  also 
to  pretty,  in  which  e  has  regularly  the  sound  of 
260 


SPELLING    REFORM 

short  i.  But  the  disposition  to  give  the  vowel 
here  its  strictly  proper  sound  is  showing  itself 
in  the  case  of  this  word.  If  left  to  run  its  nat- 
ural course,  it  is  likely  in  time  to  become 
predominant. 

As  a  general  rule,  however,  words  subject  to 
influences  of  this  sort  are  not  likely  to  be  those 
commonly  heard  in  conversation.  They  belong 
to  the  class  which  are  more  usually  met  in  books. 
There  he  who  sees  them  for  the  first  time  is 
disposed  to  make  the  pronunciation  accord  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  spelling.  To  this  rule 
there  are  occasional  notable  exceptions.  I  have 
heard  even  educated  men — at  least,  men  who 
were  generally  so  regarded — pronounce  the  words 
English  and  England  just  as  they  are  spelled — 
that  is,  the  initial  syllable  was  sounded  as  eng 
and  not  as  mg.  No  such  pronunciation  is  ever 
likely  to  become  common  enough  to  bring  itself 
into  notice;  but  that  it  should  exist  at  all  is 
proof  of  how  wide-reaching  is  the  tendency  just 
mentioned. 

These  words  themselves,  it  may  be  added, 
are  interesting  illustrations  of  one  of  the  vari- 
ous agencies  which  have  done  so  much  with  us 
to  bring  about  divergence  between  orthography 
and  orthoepy.  In  our  earlier  speech  there  were 
two  ways  of  denoting  this  initial  syllable,  cor- 
261 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

responding,  without  doubt,  to  the  two  ways  in 
which  it  was  pronounced.  In  one  case  it  was 
spelled  eng,  as  it  is  now,  in  close  accordance  with 
its  derivation.  In  the  other  case  it  was  spelled 
ing,  giving  us,  with  the  usual  orthographic  varia- 
tions, the  forms  Ingland  and  Inglish.  Here  a 
genuine  difference  in  sound  conveyed  to  the 
ear  was  represented  to  the  eye  by  a  difference 
of  orthography.  The  modern  speech  has  made 
one  of  its  usual  compromises.  It  has  retained 
the  spelling  of  the  one  form  and  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  the  other.  A  similar  story  can  be  told 
of  colonel,  which  had  once  as  an  allied  form 
coronel.  It  is  likewise  true  of  lieutenant.  In 
the  case  of  this  word,  what  is  regular  in  the 
United  States  is  exceptional  in  England,  and  vice 
versa.  With  us  the  pronunciation  of  the  first 
syllable  is  almost  universally  in  accordance  with 
that  of  the  simple  word  lieu,  which  is  its  origi- 
nal. In  England  it  is  not  allowed  to  be  con- 
taminated by  any  sound  which  might  indicate 
its  derivation.  From  a  by-gone  spelling,  lef, 
comes  the  pronunciation  there  prevalent.  This 
has  survived  the  form  that  created  it. 

But  the  most  striking  illustration  of  a  change, 

mainly  effected  by  the  agency  of  the  written 

word,  is  seen  in  the  past  participle  been.     There 

is  little  question — there  is,  indeed,  no  cjuestion — 

262 


SPELLING    REFORM 

that  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  even  much  later,  the  digraph  ee  in  this  word 
had  in  cultivated  speech  the  sound  of  short  i.  It 
is  not  meant  that  the  other  pronunciation  which 
rymed  it  with  seen  was  not  sometimes  heard; 
but  merely  that  it  was  then  so  limited  in  use 
that  orthoepists  hardly  thought  it  worth  while 
to  recognize  its  existence.  Walker  admitted 
no  pronunciation  of  been  save  that  which  made 
it  ryme  with  sin.  He  had  heard  of  the  other, 
but  he  had  only  heard  of  it.  So  said  Sheridan, 
his  contemporary  and  rival.  So  said  Smart, 
his  reviser  and  successor,  writing  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century.'  Yet,  with  no  sup- 
port from  the  most  prominent  lexical  authori- 
ties, the  pronunciation  of  been  to  ryme  with  seen 
instead  of  sin,  steadily  gained  ground  in  Eng- 
land during  the  last  century.  There  it  seems 
to  have  become  finally  the  prevalent  one.  To 
it  the  New  Historical  English  Dictionary,  while 
sanctioning  both  ways  of  pronouncing  the  word, 
gives  the  preference — at  least,  the  apparent  pref- 
erence. 

The  growth  of  this  practice  has,  without  ques- 
tion, been  largely  and  perhaps  mainly  due  to  the 
fact  that  the   digraph  ee  has  been  practically 

'  Walker's    Pronouncing    Dictionary,   revised   by    B. 
H.  Smart,  5th  edition,  London,  1857,  P-  xxiii.,  sec.  119. 
18  263 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

confined  to  the  representation  of  a  single  sound. 
It  has  become  to  us  a  phonetic  symbol,  denoting 
almost  invariably  the  so-called  "long  e."  Hav- 
ing this  sound  in  nearly  every  case,  there  is  un- 
consciously developed  the  feeling  that  it  ought 
to  have  it  always.  For  the  sake  of  conforming 
to  it,  been  has  in  consequence  steadily  tended  to 
abandon  its  once  more  common  pronunciation. 
This  single  example  is  of  special  interest,  be- 
cause of  the  proof  it  furnishes  of  the  unifying 
tendency  that  would  be  exerted  over  language 
were  phonetic  symbols  with  fixed  values  em- 
ployed to  represent  one  sound  and  but  one 
sound.  It  does  more  than  that.  It  indicates 
the  only  way  in  which  permanence  can  be  given 
to  pronunciation. 

Even  now,  so  marked  is  the  influence  of  the 
training  of  the  eye  as  compared  with  that  of 
the  ear,  that  efforts  consciously  or  unconsciously 
go  on  to  modify  the  sound  of  the  word  as  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  hear  it  to  the  form  of 
it  which  we  are  accustomed  to  see.  It  is  no  un- 
usual thing  to  hear  persons  painfully  striving  to 
pronounce  the  final  w  of  condemn,  contemn,  and 
similar  verbs^  making  themselves  very  miserable 
when  they  fail,  and  others  very  miserable  when 
they  succeed.  But,  after  all,  efforts  to  bring 
about  in  this  way  accord  between  form  and 
264 


SPELLING    REFORM 

sound  can  affect  only  a  very  limited  class  of 
words.  The  gap  between  orthography  and  or- 
thoepy is,  with  us,  too  wide  and  impassable  for 
the  latter  ever  to  close  up.  The  most  we  can 
do  is  in  process  of  time  to  revive  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  a  few  letters  that  are  now  silent,  or  to 
substitute  a  few  forms  etymologically  correct 
for  the  corruptions  by  which  they  have  been 
supplanted.  When  either  of  these  courses  shows 
signs  of  immediate  or  even  of  ultimate  adop- 
tion, it  is  not  worth  while  to  disturb  the  coming 
of  that  result  by  present  attempts  at  alteration. 
But  in  its  best  estate  the  changes  of  pronun- 
ciation to  accord  with  the  spelling  cannot,  as 
regards  influence,  be  compared  with  the  much 
more  ancient  device  now  to  be  considered.  This 
consists  in  appending  an  unpronounced  e  to  the 
final  syllable  to  indicate  that  the  preceding  vowel 
is  long.  This  method  early  evolved  itself  out 
of  the  confusion  in  which  our  orthography  was 
involved  as  a  sort  of  help  to  denote  the  pro- 
nunciation by  the  spelling. 

There  seems  to  be  something  peculiarly  at- 
tractive to  our  race  in  the  letter  e.  Especially 
is  this  so  when  it  serves  no  useful  purpose.  Add- 
ing it  at  random  to  syllables,  and  especially  to 
final  syllables,  is  supposed  to  give  a  peculiar  old- 
time  flavor  to  the  spelling.  For  this  belief  there 
265 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

is,  to  some  extent,  historic  justification.  The 
letter  still  remains  appended  to  scores  of  words 
in  which  it  has  lost  the  pronunciation  once  be- 
longing to  it.  Again,  it  has  been  added  to  scores 
of  others  apparently  to  amplify  their  proportions. 
We  have  in  our  speech  a  large  number  of  mono- 
syllables. As  a  sort  of  consolation  to  their 
shrunken  condition  an  e  has  been  appended  to 
them,  apparently  to  make  them  present  a  more 
portly  appearance.  The  fancy  we  all  have  for 
this  vowel  not  only  recalls  the  wit  but  suggests 
the  wisdom  of  Charles  Lamb's  exquisite  pun 
upon  Pope's  line  that  our  race  is  largely  made  up 
of  "  the  mob  of  gentlemen  who  write  with  ease." 
The  belief,  in  truth,  seems  to  prevail  that  the 
final  e  is  somehow  indicative  of  aristocracy. 
In  proper  names,  particularly,  it  is  felt  to  impart 
a  certain  distinction  to  the  appellation,  lifting 
it  far  above  the  grade  of  low  associations.  It 
has  the  crowning  merit  of  uselessness;  and  in 
the  eyes  of  many  uselessness  seems  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  distinguishing  mark  of  any  noble 
class,  either  of  things  or  persons.  Still,  I  have 
so  much  respect  for  the  rights  of  property  that 
it  seems  to  me  every  man  ought  to  have  the 
privilege  of  spelling  and  pronouncing  his  own 
name  in  any  way  he  pleases. 

The  prevalence  of  this  letter  at  the  end  of 
266 


SPELLING    REFORM 

words  was  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  vowels 
a,  o,  and  u  of  the  original  endings  were  all 
weakened  to  it  in  the  break-up  of  the  language 
which  followed  the  Norman  conquest.  Hence, 
it  became  the  common  ending  of  the  noun. 
The  further  disappearance  of  the  consonant  n 
from  the  original  termination  of  the  infinitive 
extended  this  usage  to  the  verb.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  tellan  and  helpan,  for  instance,  after 
being  weakened  to  tellen  and  lielpen,  became 
telle  and  helpe.  Words  not  of  native  origin 
fell  under  the  influence  of  this  general  tendency 
and  adopted  an  e  to  which  they  were  in  nowise 
entitled.  Even  Anglo-Saxon  nouns  which  ended 
in  a  consonant — such,  for  instance,  as  hors  and 
mus  and  stdn — are  now  represented  by  horse  and 
mouse  and  stone.  The  truth  is,  that  when  the 
memory  of  the  earlier  form  of  the  word  had 
passed  away  an  e  was  liable  to  be  appended,  on 
any  pretext,  to  the  end  of  it.  The  feeling  still 
continues  to  affect  us  all.  Our  eyes  have  be- 
come so  accustomed  to  seeing  a  final  e  which 
no  one  thinks  of  pronouncing,  that  the  word  is 
felt  by  some  to  have  a  certain  sort  of  incomplete- 
ness if  it  be  not  found  there.  In  no  other  way 
can  I  account  for  Lord  Macaulay's  spelling  the 
comparatively  modern  verb  edit  as  edite.  This 
seems  to  be  a  distinction  peculiar  to  himself. 
267 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

How  widely  prevalent  at  one  period  became 
the  use  of  this  final  e  can  be  brought  out  sharply 
by  an  examination  of  a  few  pages  of  a  single 
work.  Take,  for  example,  The  Schoolmaster 
of  Roger  Ascham.  This  was  published  in  1570. 
In  the  admirable  reprint  of  it,  executed  by 
Professor  Arber,  the  preface  occupies  eight 
pages.  In  this  limited  space  we  find  an  e  ap- 
pended to  no  small  number  of  words  from  which 
it  is  now  dropped.  It  appears  in  the  nouns 
bargaine,  beginninge,  booke,  daye,  deale,  deede, 
eare,  feare,  fructe  (fruit),  gowne,  greife  (sic), 
hinte,  kinde,  learninge,  logike,  minde,  realme, 
rhetorike,  silke,  sonne,  spirite,  sworde,  stuffe, 
taulke,  wisdome,  wonte,  and  worke;  in  the  verbs 
beare,  gatte  (preterite),  looke,  passe,  seenie, 
teache,  thanke,  thinke,  tooke  (preterite),  and 
waulke;  in  the  adjectives  certaine,  fewe,  fitte, 
fonde,  lewde  or  leiide,  lothe,  jneane,  olde,  poore, 
shrewde,  and  sweete;  and  in  the  adverbs  agahie, 
agoe,  cheife  (sic),  and  doiine.  On  the  other  hand, 
this  final  e  is  absent  from  some  words  where  it 
is  now  regularly  found.  Come  and  become,  for 
example,  appear  as  cum  and  becum,  and  tongue 
as  tong. 

In  the  chaos  which  came  over  the  spelling 
in  consequence  of  the  uncertainty  attached  to 
the  sound  of  the  vowels,  the  final  e  was  seized 
268 


SPELLING    REFORM 

upon  as  a  sort  of  help  to  indicate  the  pronuncia- 
tion. Its  office  in  this  respect  was  announced 
as  early  as  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century; 
at  least,  then  it  was  announced  that  an  un- 
sounded e  at  the  end  of  a  word  indicated  that 
the  preceding  vowel  was  long.  This,  it  hardly 
need  be  said,  is  a  crude  and  unscientific  method 
of  denoting  pronunciation.  It  is  a  process  pure- 
ly empirical.  It  is  far  removed  from  the  ideal 
that  no  letter  should  exist  in  a  word  which  is 
not  sounded.  Yet,  to  some  extent,  this  arti- 
ficial makeshift  has  been  and  still  is  a  working 
principle.  Were  it  carried  out  consistently  it 
might  be  regarded  as,  on  the  whole,  serving  a 
useful  purpose.  But  here,  as  well  as  elsewhere, 
the  trail  of  the  orthographic  serpent  is  discov- 
erable. Here,  as  elsewhere,  it  renders  impos- 
sible the  full  enjoyment  of  even  this  slight 
section  of  an  orthographic  paradise.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  manifests  itself  the  besetting  sin  of 
our  spelling,  that  there  is  no  consistency  in  the 
application  of  any  principle.  Some  of  our  most 
common  verbs  violate  the  rule  (if  rule  it  can 
be  called),  such  as  have,  give,  love,  arc,  done.  In 
these  the  preceding  vowel  is  not  long  but  short. 
There  arc  further  large  classes  of  words  ending 
in  He,  ine,  ite,  ive,  where  this  final  e  would  serve 
to  mislead  the  inquirer  as  to  the  pronunciation 
269 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

had  he  no  other  source  of  information  than  the 
spelling. 

Still,  in  the  case  of  some  of  these  words  the 
operation  of  this  principle  has  had,  and  is  doubt- 
less continuing  to  have,  a  certain  influence. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  word  hostile.  In  the  early- 
nineteenth  century,  if  we  can  trust  the  most 
authoritative  dictionaries,  this  word  was  reg- 
ularly pronounced  in  England  as  if  spelled 
hos'-til.  So  it  is  to-day  in  America.  But  the 
influence  of  the  final  e  has  tended  to  prolong, 
in  the  former  country,  the  sound  of  the  preceding 
i.  Consequently,  a  usual,  and  probably  the  usual, 
pronunciation  there  is  hos-Ule.  We  can  see 
a  similar  tendency  manifested  in  the  case  of 
several  other  adjectives.  A  disposition  to  give 
many  of  them  the  long  diphthongal  sound  of  the 
i  is  frequently  displayed  in  the  pronunciation 
of  such  words  as  agile,  docile,  ductile,  futile, 
infantile.  Save  in  the  case  of  the  last  one  of 
this  list,  the  dictionaries  once  gave  the  ile  noth- 
ing but  the  sound  of  il;  now  they  usually  au- 
thorize both  ways. 

Were  the  principle  here  indicated  fully  car- 
ried out,  pronunciations  now  condemned  as  vul- 
garisms would  displace  those  now  considered 
correct.  In  accordance  with  it,  for  instance, 
engine,  as  it  is  spelled,  should  strictly  have 
270 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  i  long.  One  of  the  devices  employed  by 
Dickens  in  Martin  Chuzzlewit  to  ridicule  what 
he  pretended  was  the  American  speech  was 
to  have  the  characters  pronounce  genuine  as 
gen-u-ine,  prejudice  as  prej-u-dice,  active  and 
native  as  ac-tyve  and  na-tive.  Doubtless  he 
heard  such  pronunciations  from  some  men. 
Yet,  in  these  instances,  the  speaker  was  carried 
along  by  the  same  tendency  which  in  cultivated 
English  has  succeeded  in  turning  the  pro- 
nunciation hos-til  into  hos-tile.  Were  there  any 
binding  force  in  the  application  of  the  rule 
which  imparts  to  the  termination  e  the  power 
of  lengthening  the  preceding  vowel,  no  one 
would  have  any  business  to  give  to  it  in  the 
final  syllable  of  the  words  just  specified  any 
other  sound  than  that  of  "long  i."  The  pro- 
nunciations ridiculed  by  Dickens  would  be  the 
only  pronunciations  allowable.  Accordingly,  the 
way  to  make  the  rule  universally  effective  is  to 
drop  this  final  e  when  it  does  not  produce  such 
an  effect.  If  genuine  is  to  be  pronounced 
gen-u-m,  so  it  ought  to  be  spelled. 

For  a  long  period,  indeed,  in  the  early  history 
of  our  speech,  whenever  pronunciation  changed, 
spelling  was  changed  for  the  sake  of  denoting  it 
properly.  If  a  letter  then  became  silent,  it  had 
no  rights  which  any  one  felt  bound  to  respect. 
271 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

It  was  incontinently  dropped.  No  one  needs 
to  be  told  that  this  has  all  been  changed  in 
modern  times.  With  us  it  has  become  both 
the  belief  and  the  practice  that  if  a  letter  has 
once  got  into  the  spelling  of  a  word,  no  matter 
how  unlawfully,  it  has  acquired  the  right  of 
remaining  there  forever.  In  consequence,  our 
language  is  encumbered  with  a  lot  of  alpha- 
betic squatters  which  have  settled  down  upon 
the  orthography  without  any  regard  to  the  op- 
posing claims  of  either  derivation  or  pronuncia- 
tion. The  mental  attitude  which  at  first  toler- 
ated and  at  last  has  learned  to  love  these 
nuisances  sprang  up  after  the  invention  of  print- 
ing. The  influence  of  this  art  upon  the  spelling 
is  something  that  cannot  well  be  overestimated. 
Any  confusion  which  might  before  have  existed 
in  it  became  from  this  time  worse  confounded. 
Upon  the  introduction  of  printing,  indeed, 
English  orthography  entered  into  the  realm  of 
chaos  and  old  night,  in  which  it  has  ever  since 
been  floundering.  Then  it  began  to  pu  on  the 
shape  it  at  present  bears,  "  if  shape  it  may  be 
called  which  shape  has  none." 

The  evil  effects  wrought  on  the  orthography 
by  printing,  as  contrasted  with   the   previous 
method  of  manuscript  reproduction,  were  large- 
ly due   to   the   difference  of  conditions   under 
272 


SPELLING    REFORM 

which  the  two  arts  were  carried  on.  The  early- 
type-setters,  indeed,  had  to  encounter  the  same 
difihculties  which  beset  the  copyists  of  manu- 
scripts. There  were  among  educated  men  the 
widest  diversities  of  pronunciation.  No  es- 
tabHshed  hterary,  still  less  established  orthoepic 
standard,  to  which  all  felt  obliged  to  conform, 
could  possibly  grow  up  during  the  long  civil 
strife  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Disorder  and 
confusion,  which  in  many  cases  had  their  origin 
as  far  back  as  the  coming  together  in  one  tongue 
of  two  conflicting  phonetic  systems,  continued 
to  prevail  to  a  great  extent.  But  the  copyists 
of  manuscripts,  compared  with  the  type-setters 
who  succeeded  them,  were  men  of  education. 
Some  degree  of  cultivation  was  essential  to  a 
profession  which  demanded  as  the  first  condition 
of  success  the  ability  to  gain  a  clear  conception 
of  an  author's  meaning.  In  accordance  with 
the  practice  then  universally  prevailing,  they 
would  give  to  the  word  the  spelling  which  to 
them  represented  the  pronunciation.  As  edu- 
cated men,  this  would  be  done  in  the  majority 
of  cases  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  accuracy. 

Still,  that  the  copyists  of  manuscripts  were 

a  long  way  from  reaching  the  highest  ideal  of 

excellence  we  know  from  incontestable  authority. 

The    corruption   of   the    text   caused   by    their 

273 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

wilfulness  or  carelessness  was  one  of  the  few 
things  that  seem  to  have  vexed  the  genial  soul 
of  the  first  great  singer  of  our  literature.  Chaucer 
in  his  address  to  Adam,  the  scrivener,  complains 
of  the  great  trouble  to  which  he  is  put  in  re- 
vising his  works  by  the  latter's  negligence.  A 
fervent  prayer  is  made  that  he  may  have  a 
scalled  head  if  he  does  not  hereafter  adhere  to 
the  original  writing  more  closely.  Toward  the 
end  of  Troilus  and  Cryseyde  there  is,  as  Mr. 
Ellis  remarked,  something  almost  pathetic  in 
his  address  to  his  "litel  boke  " 

And  for  ther  is  so  greet  dyversitee 
In  Englissh  and  in  writynge  of  our  tonge. 
So  preye  I  God,  that  non  myswrite  thee, 
Ne  the  mys-metere  for  defaut  of  tonge. 

It  is  not  likely  that  either  imprecation  or 
imploration  had  much  effect  upon  the  scribes 
of  that  day,  who  were  probably  as  perverse  a 
generation  as  the  scribes  of  old.  But  one  thing 
is  to  be  said  in  their  behalf.  The  cardinal  prin- 
ciple that  the  proper  office  of  orthography  is 
to  represent  orthoepy  they  never  lost  sight  of, 
however  wofully  they  may  have  failed  in  carry- 
ing it  into  effect.  Had  this  been  consistently 
kept  in  view,  the  attainment  of  a  reasonably 
complete  correspondence  between  spelling  and 
274 


SPELLING    REFORM 

pronunciation,  while  it  might  have  been  long 
delayed,  would  have  been  sure  to  follow  at  last. 
All  this  was  checked  and  finally  reversed  by 
the  introduction  of  printing.  Far  higher  re- 
quirements, as  has  been  intimated,  were  needed 
in  the  work  of  the  copyist  than  in  the  mere 
mechanical  labor  of  the  type-setter.  The  former 
had  to  understand  his  author  to  represent  cor- 
rectly what  he  said.  But  there  is  no  such 
necessity  in  the  case  of  the  compositor.  What- 
ever intellect  he  may  have,  he  will  not  be  called 
upon  to  use  it  to  any  great  extent  in  his  special 
line  of  activity.  His  duty  is  done  if  he  faithfully 
follows  copy,  and  he  can  perform  his  work  well 
in  a  language  of  which  he  does  not  comprehend 
a  word.  His  labor  is  and  must  always  be 
mostly  mechanical.  The  very  fact  that  he  is 
not  responsible  for  results  will  inevitably  have  a 
tendency  to  make  him  careless  in  details.  The 
blunders  in  spelling,  and  in  greater  matters 
still,  shown  in  modern  printing-offices  where 
the  most  scrupulous  care  is  exerted  to  attain 
correctness  are  familiar  to  all.  These  evils 
would  be  immensely  increased  at  a  period  when 
no  such  extensive  precautions  against  error 
were  taken  in  any  case,  and  when  in  some  cases 
it  would  seem  as  if  no  precautions  were  taken 
at  all.  The  effects  of  the  carelessness  and  in- 
275 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

difference  that  frequently  prevailed  would  not 
be  and  were  not  confined  to  the  work  in  which 
they  were  directly  manifested.  The  orthography 
of  printed  matter  necessarily  reacts  upon  the 
orthography  of  the  men  who  are  familiar  with 
it.  These,  when  they  come  to  write,  will  be 
apt  to  repeat  the  errors  they  have  learned  from 
the  books  they  read.  With  that  peculiar  ability 
in  blundering  shown  by  all  careless  spellers,  they 
will  further  contribute  numberless  variations 
of  their  own.  These  in  turn  will  be  followed 
more  or  less  by  the  type-setter.  Thus,  new 
forms  will  be  constantly  added  to  the  prevailing 
disorder.  In  this  manner  a  complete  circle  is 
formed  in  which  author  and  printer  corrupt 
each  other,  and  both  together  corrupt  the 
public. 

Such  was,  in  great  measure,  the  situation  of 
things  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen- 
turies. Differences  of  spelling  in  the  same 
book  and  on  the  same  page  were  found  con- 
stantly. But  necessarily  it  was  a  situation 
which  could  not  continue.  To  a  printing-office, 
uniformity  of  orthography,  if  not  absolutely 
essential,  is,  to  say  the  least,  highly  desirable. 
Toward  uniformity,  therefore,  the  printing- 
offices  steadily  bent  their  aim,  since  nobody 
and  nothing  else  would.  The  movement  in  that 
276 


SPELLING    REFORM 

direction  was  powerfully  helped  forward  by  the 
feeling,  which  had  been  steadily  gaining  strength 
after  the  revival  of  classical  learning,  that  the 
office,  or  at  least  one  great  office,  of  orthography 
is  to  indicate  derivation.  Belief  in  this  in- 
volved in  its  very  nature  the  notion  of  fixedness 
of  spelling.  It  therefore  gave  the  sanction  of 
a  quasi-scholarship  to  the  demand  for  an  un- 
varying standard  which  came  from  a  mechanic 
art.  Under  the  pressing  needs  of  the  printing- 
office,  the  movement  toward  uniformity  made 
steady  progress  during  the  seventeenth  century 
and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth.  Wide  varia- 
tions continued  to  be  found  in  works  bearing 
the  imprint  of  different  establishments.  We 
must  remember  that  there  were  then  no  dic- 
tionaries that  men  were  disposed  to  consider 
authoritative.  It  was  not  until  the  eighteenth 
century  that  these  began  to  exist  on  any  scale 
worth  mentioning,  or  that  much  respect  was 
paid  to  the  spellings  they  sanctioned.  Each 
printing-office  was  largely  a  law  unto  itself. 

But  the  desire  for  uniformity  became  more  in- 
sistent as  time  went  on.  At  last  it  succeeded 
in  reaching  the  end  it  had  in  view.  But  un- 
fortunately for  us,  the  establishment  of  the 
orthography  was  in  no  way  the  work  of  scholars, 
though  this  was  largely  a  result  of  their  own 
277 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

indolence  and  indifference.  It  came  into  the 
hands  of  men  who  knew  nothing  about  it  and 
cared  still  less.  In  consequence,  it  was  a  hap- 
hazard orthography  that  was  fixed  upon  us. 
In  the  selections  made  by  compositors  and  proof- 
readers from  the  variations  of  spelling  which 
then  prevailed,  it  was  the  merest  accident  or 
the  blindest  caprice  that  dictated  the  choice  of 
the  form  to  be  permanently  adopted.  Authors 
themselves  seem  rarely  to  have  taken  any  in- 
terest in  the  matter.  The  uniformity,  or  the 
approach  to  uniformity,  we  have  now  was  ac- 
cordingly the  work  of  printers  and  not  of 
scholars.  As  might  be  expected,  the  result  of 
it  is  a  mere  conventional  uniformity.  In  no 
sense  of  the  word  is  it  a  scientific  one.  In 
effecting  it,  propriety  was  disregarded,  ety- 
mology was  perverted,  and  every  principle  of 
orthoepy  defied.  Men  of  culture  blindly  follow- 
ed in  the  wake  of  a  movement  which  they  had 
not  the  power  and  probably  not  the  knowledge 
to  direct.  Certainly  they  lacked  the  disposi- 
tion. To  the  orthography  thus  manufactured 
Johnson's  Dictionary,  which  came  out  in  1755, 
gave  authority,  gave  currency — gave,  in  fact, 
universality.  But  it  could  not  give  consistency 
nor  reason,  for  in  it  they  were  not  to  be  found. 
As  a  consequence  of  the  wide  acceptance  of 
278 


SPELLING    REFORM 

this  orthography,  the  petrifaction  of  the  written 
speech  which  had  been  steadily  going  on  for  at 
least  two  centuries  was  now  practically  made 
complete.  So  far  as  the  forms  of  the  words 
were  concerned,  it  assumed  more  and  more  the 
character  of  a  dead  language.  But  in  the 
meanwhile  the  spoken  tongue  remained  full  of 
vigor  and  life.  As  a  necessary  consequence,  it 
was  constantly  undergoing  modification.  While 
the  spelling  stood  still,  changes  in  pronuncia- 
tion were  numerous  and  rapid.  Whether  they 
were  for  the  better  or  for  the  worse  is  not  perti- 
nent to  this  inquiry.  But  the  inevitable  result 
was  to  widen  steadily  the  gulf  that  had  long 
before  begun  to  disclose  itself  as  existing  be- 
tween the  written  and  the  spoken  word.  That 
result  is  before  us.  No  particular  value  having 
been  attached  to  any  vowel  or  combination  of 
vowels,  there  is  nothing  to  determine  the  exact 
value  they  should  have  when  they  appear  in  a 
particular  syllable.  For  the  pronunciation  we 
go  not  necessarily  to  the  word  itself  but  to  some- 
where else.  Every  member  of  the  English  race 
has  to  learn  two  languages,  every  member  of  the 
English  race  uses  two  languages.  The  one  he 
reads  and  writes;  the  other  he  speaks. 

X9 


CHAPTER  VI 

OBJECTIONS,  REAL  AND  REPUTED 

TWO  languages,  it  has  just  been  said,  we 
have:  one  we  write,  and  one  we  speak. 
To  bring  them  even  remotely  into  conformity  is 
one  of  the  hardest  problems  to  solve  that  was 
ever  put  before  the  users  of  any  tongue.  It  is 
manifest  from  the  survey  which  was  made  of 
the  orthographic  situation,  that  the  difficulties 
which  stand  in  the  way  of  reforming  English 
spelling  are  not  the  difficulties  which  are 
ordinarily  paraded.  There  are  arguments 
against  any  change  whatever.  They  do  not 
seem  to  me  strong  ones,  but  they  are  honestly 
held.  Furthermore,  they  are  held  by  men  who 
know  too  much  about  the  language  to  be  im- 
posed upon  by  the  cheap  objections,  which 
come  from  the  unknowing  or  the  unthinking. 
The  only  one  of  serious  importance  is  the 
existence  of  that  period  of  uncertainty  and 
confusion  which  must  attend  the  transition 
from  the  old  to  the  new.  This,  to  be  sure,  has 
280 


SPELLING    REFORM 

> 
always  existed  to  some  extent.     Once  it  existed 

to  a  great  extent.  It  exists  at  the  present  day. 
The  introductions  or  appendixes  to  our  larger 
dictionaries  contain  lists  of  from  fifteen  hundred 
to  two  thousand  words  which  still  continue  to  be 
spelled  in  different  ways.  But  many  of  these 
are  not  in  common  use.  Hence,  the  number  of 
them  makes  little  impression  upon  the  com- 
mon mind. 

But  as  no  reform  of  any  kind  ever  yet  proved 
an  unmixed  blessing,  so  will  not  reform  of  Eng- 
lish orthography.  Especially  will  this  be  true 
of  it  at  its  introduction.  A  change  of  spelling 
on  any  large  scale  will  involve  for  the  time  being 
certain  disadvantages.  The  conflict  between 
the  old  that  is  going  out  and  the  new  that  is 
coming  in  cannot  fail  to  produce  more  or  less 
of  annoyance.  These  disturbances,  indeed,  last 
only  for  a  time;  but  to  some  they  are  very  real 
while  they  do  last.  Those  of  us  who  believe 
that  the  permanent  benefits  accruing  to  the 
users  of  our  tongue  from  a  reform  of  our  or- 
thography outweigh  immensely  the  temporary 
inconveniences  and  annoyances  to  which  they 
will  be  subject,  can  well  afford  to  bear  with  the 
hesitation  of  those  who  like  the  end  in  view, 
but  dislike  the  time  and  toil  that  must  be  gone 
through  in  order  to  reach  it.  There  must 
281 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

always  be  taken  into  consideration  the  existence 
of  a  class  of  persons  who  look  upon  the  present 
state  of  our  orthography  as  an  evil,  but  an  evil 
that  cannot  be  got  rid  of  without  costing  more 
than  the  benefits  received  in  return. 

But  such  reasons  for  reluctance  to  unsettle 
the  existing  condition  of  things  are  widely  dif- 
ferent from  the  pretentious  objections  that  are 
regularly  advanced  by  those  who  have  not 
studied  the  subject  sufficiently  to  understand 
the  real  difficulties  that  lie  in  the  way.  Yet 
these  imaginary  obstacles  loom  up  so  large  in 
the  minds  of  many  that  they  must  receive 
a  respectable  amount  of  consideration,  even  if 
they  are  hardly  entitled  to  respectful  considera- 
tion. It  is  not  for  any  value  they  have  in 
themselves  that  they  are  discussed  here.  It  is 
because  they  are  constantly  urged  by  men  whose 
opinions  on  other  subjects  are  frequently  of 
highest  value.  The  utter  hollowness  of  these 
common  objections  to  spelling  reform  will  be 
shown  in  the  course  of  the  following  pages,  as 
well  as  the  unconscious  insincerity  of  those 
advancing  them.  I  say  unconscious,  because 
the  insincerity  has  not  been  caused  by  any 
attempt  to  ignore  the  facts  or  to  conceal  them. 
It  is  simply  that  these  have  never  occurred  to 
them.  But  I  further  say  insincerity,  because 
282 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  moment  the  real  facts  are  brought  to  their 
attention,  they  refuse  to  apply  to  particular 
cases  the  general  principles  upon  which  they 
have  been  loudly  insisting.  The  further  great 
difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  honest  objector 
does  not  consist  merely  in  showing  him  that  he 
is  wrong  in  his  facts.  It  is  to  make  clear  that 
his  reasoning  is  wrong  in  the  few  instances  in 
which  his  facts  are  right. 


The  first  of  these  objections  is  connected  with 
the  subject  of  derivation.  There  goes  on,  we 
are  told,  an  irrepressible  conflict  between  ety- 
mological spelling  and  phonetic,  or  anything 
approaching  phonetic  spelling.  If  the  latter 
come  to  occupy  the  foremost  place,  the  former, 
it  is  asserted,  will  disappear.  Incalculable 
harm  would  thereby  be  wrought  both  to  the 
speech  and  to  its  speakers.  According  to  some, 
life  would  become  a  burden  to  the  individual, 
and  the  language  would  be  ruined  beyond  re- 
demption, if  the  spelling  of  a  word  should  hide 
from  our  eyes  the  source  from  which  it  came. 
The  mystic  tic  that  binds  the  speech  of  the  past 
to  that  of  the  present  would  be  severed.  This 
is  the  special  argument  which  comes  not  unfre- 
283 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

quently  from  members  of  the  educated,  and 
sometimes  of  the  scholarly  class,  though  not 
from  that  section  of  it  which  deals  with  English 
scholarship.  In  the  course  of  the  preceding 
pages  there  has  been  constant  occasion  to  give 
illustrations  of  its  falsity,  and  far  too  often  of 
its  fraud.  Consequently,  to  discuss  it  direct- 
ly and  at  length  will  seem  to  many  very  much 
like  going  through  the  process  of  slaying  the 
slain.  But  it  plays  so  conspicuous  a  part  in  all 
discussions  of  spelling  reform,  that  it  is  perhaps 
advisable,  if  not  necessary,  to  consider  it  with 
special  fulness  of  detail. 

There  is  no  question,  indeed,  that  this  ar- 
gument based  upon  etymology  has  the  strongest 
hold  upon  the  educated  class.  It  is  constantly 
brought  forward  as  if  it  were  sufficient  of  itself 
to  settle  the  question.  Words,  we  are  told,  have 
a  descent  of  their  own.  Letters  which  are  never 
heard  in  the  spoken  speech,  and  indeed  cannot 
be  pronounced  by  any  conceivable  position 
known  to  us  of  our  vocal  organs,  are  not  to  be 
dropped  from  the  written  speech,  because  they 
remind  us,  or  at  least  remind  some  of  us,  of 
forms  in  the  languages  from  which  they  originally 
came.  It  sends  a  peculiar  thrill  of  rapture,  we 
are  assured,  through  the  heart  of  the  student  to 
find,  for  illustration,  in  deign,  reign,  feign,  and 
284 


SPELLING    REFORM 

impugn,  SL  letter  g  which  he  never  thinks  of  pro- 
nouncing. Silent  as  it  is  to  the  ear,  it  is,  never- 
theless, eloquent  with  all  the  tender  associations 
connected  with  dignor,  jingo,  regno,  and  impugno. 
That  persons  with  little  education,  and  on  the 
other  hand  persons  with  the  highest  linguistic 
training,  should  not  share  in  these  feelings  is  not 
at  all  to  the  purpose.  Such  are  not  really  the 
ones  to  be  consulted.  Between  these  two  classes 
lies  a  vast  body  of  educated  men  whose  wishes 
in  this  matter  should  be  considered  paramount. 
That  this  argument  in  their  behalf  may  not 
be  charged  with  misrepresentation,  take  the 
following  passage  from  Archbishop  Trench, 
one  of  the  deservedly  favorite  linguistic  writers 
of  the  previous  generation.  Furthermore,  as 
about  the  only  English  scholar  of  any  repute 
who  has  come  to  the  aid  of  the  opponents  of 
spelling  reform,  his  words  deserve  quotation 
on  that  very  account.  He  is  giving  as  a  reason 
for  the  retention  of  useless  letters  that  while 
they  are  silent  to  the  ear,  they  remain  eloquent 
to  the  eye.  "  It  is  urged,  indeed,"  wrote  Trench, 
"  as  an  answer  to  this,  that  the  scholar  does  not 
need  these  indications  to  help  him  to  the 
pedigree  of  the  words  with  which  he  deals,  that 
the  ignorant  is  not  helped  by  them;  that  the 
one  knows  without,  and  the  other  does  not 
285 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

know  with  them;  so  that,  in  either  case,  they  are 
profitable  for  nothing.  Let  it  be  freely  granted 
that  this,  in  both  these  cases,  is  true ,  but  between 
these  two  extremes  there  is  a  multitude  of 
persons,  neither  accomplished  scholars  on  the 
one  side,  nor  yet  wholly  without  the  knowledge 
of  all  languages  save  their  own  on  the  other; 
and  I  cannot  doubt  that  it  is  of  great  value 
that  these  should  have  all  helps  enabling  them 
to  recognize  the  words  which  they  are  using, 
whence  they  came,  to  what  words  in  other 
languages  they  are  nearly  related,  and  what  is 
their  properest  and  strictest  meaning."* 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  were  all  this  true,  the 
objection  would  not  be  a  valid  one.  The  well- 
being  of  the  many  is  always  to  be  preferred  to 
the  satisfaction  of  the  few.  A  language  does  not 
exist  for  the  sake  of  imparting  joyful  emotions 
to  the  members  of  a  particular  group  who  are 
familiar  with  its  sources.  When  committed 
to  writing  it  is  so  committed  for  the  purpose  of 
conveying  clearly  to  the  eye  the  sounds  heard 
by  the  ear.  Anything  in  the  form  of  the  printed 
word  which  stands  in  the  way  of  the  speediest 
arrival  at  such  a  result  is  to  that  extent  ob- 
jectionable.    But  even  this  so-called  advantage 

*  English,  Past  and  Present,  p.  298,  8th  edition,  re- 
vised, London,  1873. 

286 


SPELLING    REFORM 

of  suggesting  origins  is  distinctly  limited.  What 
educated  men  know  of  the  sources  of  words  is 
almost  entirely  confined  to  Latin  and  Greek. 
Of  the  earlier  forms  of  the  more  common  native 
words  and  of  their  meanings  the  immense  ma- 
jority of  even  the  most  highly  cultivated  are 
ignorant.  Their  ignorance,  however,  does  not 
seem  to  impair  their  happiness  any  more  than 
it  does  their  comprehension. 

But  the  objection,  further,  is  a  purely  artificial 
one.  The  happiness  conferred  is  a  happiness 
assumed  to  be  confined  to  the  words  in  their 
present  form.  The  example  of  other  tongues 
shows  there  is  no  justification  for  this  belief. 
The  Italian  is  a  phonetic  language.  Does  any 
one  believe  that  an  Italian  scholar  experiences 
any  less  satisfaction  in  finding  the  Graeco- 
Latin  philosophia  converted  in  his  speech  into 
filosofia  than  an  English  one  does  in  seeing  it 
in  the  form  philosophy?  Has  his  language  suf- 
fered any  material  injury  in  consequence? 
Were  I  not  myself  inconsistent  and  lazy  and 
several  other  disreputable  adjectives,  I  should 
write  fonetic  instead  of  phonetic.  This  I  cheer- 
fully admit.  But  were  not  the  strictly  virtuous 
defenders  of  spelling  according  to  derivation 
equally  lacking  in  consistency,  and  absolutely 
unfaithful  to  the  high  etymological  ideals  they 
287 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

hold  up  for  our  admiration,  they  would  be  writ- 
ing phansy,  at  least,  instead  of  fancy.  In  one 
of  the  sporadic  attacks  of  common-sense  which 
have  sometimes  overtaken  the  users  of  our 
speech,  /  has  displaced  ph  in  this  word,  though 
to  prevent  the  result  from  being  wholly  rational 
it  has  substituted  c  for  5.  The  Greek  phantasia 
has  come  down  to  us  through  phantasy,  fantasy, 
and  has  finally  subsided  into  the  present  form. 
To  the  believer  in  etymological  spelling  fancy 
ought  to  be  as  objectionable  as  fonetic. 

In  the  second  place,  the  hollowness  of  this 
pretended  regard  for  etymology  is  not  only 
detected,  it  is  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  the 
opposition  to  change  is  equally  pronounced  in 
the  case  of  words  where  the  present  form  is  the 
result  of  blundering  ignorance  which  gives  an 
utterly  erroneous  idea  of  their  origin.  Can  any 
antagonist  of  simplification  be  induced  by  his 
devotion  to  derivation  to  abandon  comptroller? 
This  corrupt  spelling  does  more  than  defy  the 
pronunciation  of  the  word;  it  gives  an  utterly 
false  impression  of  its  source.  Controller  is  in 
Anglo-French  contre-rollour,  in  law  Latin  contra- 
rotulator.  These,  again,  were  taken  from  the 
Latin  contra,  'against,'  and  the  diminutive 
rotulus,  rotula,  'a  little  wheel,'  which  word  in 
the  middle  ages  acquired  the  meaning  of  'roll.' 
288 


SPELLING    REFORM 

The  controller,  in  consequence,  was  the  one  who 
kept  the  counter-roll  or  register,  by  which  the 
entries  on  some  other  roll  were  tested.  How 
naturally  the  possession  of  such  an  office  would 
be  apt  to  give  to  him  holding  it  "control" 
over  certain  others,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
word,  is  apparent  on  the  surface.  But  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  even  earlier,  some  mem- 
bers of  that  class,  "  neither  accomplished 
scholars  on  the  one  side  nor  yet  wholly  without 
the  knowledge  of  all  languages  save  their  own 
on  the  other,"  got  it  into  their  heads  that  the 
first  part  of  the  word  came  from  the  French 
compter,  'to  count.'  Hence  came  the  unpho- 
netic  spelling  based  upon  a  blunder  of  deri- 
vation. 

Take  two  other  examples,  illustrative  of  this 
attitude  of  opposition.  Could  any  upholder  of 
etymological  spelling  be  induced  to  drop  the  c 
of  scent,  though  nobody  ever  pronounced  the 
intruding  letter?  Yet,  as  it  comes  from  the 
Latin  sent-ire,  the  substitution  of  scent  for  the 
previous  sent  destroys  in  this  case  for  the  vast 
majority  of  educated  men  that  delightful  remi- 
niscence of  the  classic  tongues  which,  we  are 
told,  imparts  so  peculiar  a  charm  to  the  present 
orthography.  Mitford,  the  historian  of  Greece, 
was  subjected  to  ceaseless  ridicule  and  vitupera- 
289 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

tion  because  he  preferred  the  correct  etymo- 
logical form  Hand,  and  refused  to  adopt  the  s 
which  had  been  inserted  into  the  word  under 
the  blundering  belief  that  it  was  either  derived 
from  or  was  in  some  way  related  to  the  Latin 
insula  and  the  French  isle. 

In  truth,  the  argument  of  derivation  is  in- 
voked only  to  retain  whatever  orthographic 
anomalies  we  chance  to  have.  It  is  abjured  the 
moment  an  effort  is  made  to  root  out  any  etymo- 
logical anomalies  which  have  been  introduced 
into  the  speech.  The  fact  is  that  if  spelling 
according  to  derivation  were  heeded  it  would 
result  in  changes  to  which  those  proposed  by 
any  advocate  of  simplification  of  spelling  would 
seem  absurdly  trivial.  This  would  be  par- 
ticularly noticeable  in  the  case  of  words  de- 
rived from  native  sources.  The  opponent  of 
spelling  reform  who  bases  his  hostility  upon 
etymological  grounds  would  be  aghast  were  he 
asked  to  conform  to  his  principles  in  his  practice. 
Out  indeed  would  go  the  h  of  the  very  word 
aghast  just  used.  Nothing  would  induce  him 
to  drop  the  intruding  letter  in  this  case  or  other 
letters  in  scores  of  other  cases,  though  their 
only  effect  is  to  hide  the  origin  of  the  word. 
Or  take,  for  illustration  of  mere  uselessness,  the 
k  of  whole  classes  of  words  of  native  origin. 

2QO 


SPELLING    REFORM 

The  letter  was  as  little  known  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  alphabet  as  it  was  to  the  Roman.  Hence, 
were  spelling  according  to  derivation  strictly 
enforced,  it  would  have  to  disappear  from  no 
small  number  of  words  where  it  is  not  merely- 
superfluous  as  regards  pronunciation,  but  gives 
an  entirely  erroneous  impression  of  the  form 
from  which  it  came.  It  has  been  remarked  that 
the  original  of  back  was  boBC,  of  quick  was  cwic, 
of  stock  was  stoc,  of  sick  was  seoc.  Imagine 
the  indignant  feelings  of  the  assumed  ardent 
devotee  of  spelling  according  to  derivation  if 
he  were  asked  to  drop  the  final  letter  from  these 
words.  Yet  from  his  own  point  of  view  it  has 
no  business  there  at  all. 

To  a  certain  extent  this  particular  brand  of 
ruin  had  already  overtaken  the  language. 
From  the  native  words  no  one  had  ever  thought 
of  discarding  the  final  k,  because  scarcely  any 
one  knew  of  the  forms  these  originally  had. 
But  knowledge  of  Latin  was  widespread.  Re- 
gard for  derivation  succeeded,  therefore,  in 
banishing  it  from  whole  classes  of  words  taken 
from  that  language.  The  struggle,  however, 
was  long.  The  authority  of  Doctor  Johnson 
was  in  vain  invoked  for  its  retention.  One  must 
be  familiar  with  the  history  of  orthography  to 
appreciate  what  dissensions  sprang  up  in  once 
291 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

happy  homes,  what  prognostics  were  indulged 
in  of  the  ruin  that  would  betide  the  speech,  were 
men  ever  to  be  induced  to  spell  niusick  and  histor- 
ick  and  prosaick,  and  a  host  of  similar  words, 
without  their  final  k.  Boswell,  who  could  not 
help  reproaching  Johnson  for  dropping  the 
vowel  u  from  authour,  praised  him  for  standing 
up  for  the  retention  of  this  final  consonant. 
He  represents  him  as  saying  that  he  spelled 
Imlac  in  Rasselas  with  a  c  at  the  end  because  by 
so  doing  it  was  less  like  English,  which,  he  con- 
tinued, "should  always  have  the  Saxon  k  added 
to  the  c."  The  "Saxon  k"  was  the  lexicog- 
rapher's personal  contribution  to  the  original 
English  alphabet.  "I  hope,"  continued  Bos- 
well, "  the  authority  of  the  great  master  of  our 
language  will  stop  this  curtailing  innovation  by 
which  we  see  critic,  public,  etc.,  frequently  writ- 
ten instead  of  critick,  publick,  etc  " 

The  biographer's  hopes  were  doomed,  how- 
ever, to  disappointment.  Walker,  the  favorite 
lexicographer  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  bowed  to 
the  storm,  while  he  deplored  the  havoc  it  had 
wrought.  "  It  has  been  a  custom  within  these 
twenty  years,"  he  wrote,  "to  omit  the  k  at  the 
end  of  words  when  preceded  by  c.  This  has 
introduced  a  novelty  into  the  language,  which  is 
that  of  ending  a  word  with  an  unusual  letter, 
292 


SPELLING    REFORM 

and  is  not  only  a  blemish  on  the  face  of  it,  but 
may  possibly  produce  some  irregularity  in  future 
formations."  To  call  it  a  novelty  was  stating 
the  matter  too  strongly.  But  to  this  extent 
Walker's  assertion  was  true,  that  spelling  a 
word  with  a  final  c  was  only  occasional. 

Here  we  have  been  considering  the  dropping 
of  a  useless  final  letter  which  has  no  justification 
for  its  existence  on  the  ground  of  derivation. 
This  naturally  leads  to  the  consideration  of  the 
case  in  which  it  is  proposed  to  drop  a  particular 
one  which  has  such  justification.  This  is  the 
no  longer  pronounced  guttural  with  which,  as  one 
example,  through  ends.  One  of  the  queer  ob- 
jections brought  against  the  spelling  thru  was 
that  hardly  a  word  existed  in  our  language  that 
ended  in  the  letter  u.  That  seemed  to  the 
protester  an  all-sufficient  reason  for  never  letting 
any  of  them  have  that  termination.  If  the 
sound  was  there  to  be  represented,  there  seemed 
no  very  cogent  reason  why  the  letter  fitted  to 
represent  it  should  not  perform  its  office.  In 
the  original  speech  u  terminated  some  most 
common  words,  as  sunu, '  son ' ;  duru, '  door ' ;  and 
pu,  'thou.'  What  crime  has  this  unfortunate 
vowel  committed  that  it  should  he  deprived  of 
its  ancient  privilege  of  standing  at  the  end  of  a 
word?     The  objection  is  interesting  because  it 

293 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

shows  what  sort  of  reasons  intelHgent  people  can 
be  led  to  believe  and  to  adduce  under  the  honest 
impression  that  these  are  to  be  deemed  arguments. 
Another  fallacy  connected  with  this  subject 
of  spelling  in  conformity  with  the  derivation  is 
suggested  by  the  extract  taken  from  Archbishop 
Trench's  work,  rather  than  directly  asserted  in 
it.  This  is  that  a  knowledge  of  the  origin  of 
words  is  a  desirable  if  not  an  essential  requisite 
to  their  proper  use.  Consequently,  the  spelling 
of  the  English  word  should  be  made  to  con- 
form to  the  etymology  for  that  particular  rea- 
son. This  is  an  assumption  that  has  no  warrant 
in  fact.  The  existence  of  great  authors  in  every 
literature,  who  had  either  no  knowledge  or  had 
very  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  sources  of  the 
speech  which  they  wielded  at  will,  is  an  argu- 
ment which  may  be  ignored,  and  ordinarily  is 
ignored,  because  it  can  never  be  squarely  met. 
It  is  not  from  their  originals  or  from  their  past 
meanings  that  men  learn  the  value  of  the  terms 
they  employ.  Acquaintance  with  that  comes 
from  experience  or  observation,  or  from  famil- 
iarity with  the  usage  of  the  best  speakers  and 
writers.  Is  the  meaning  of  nausea  any  plainer 
after  we  have  learned  that  it  is  by  origin  a 
Greek  word  which  come  from  naus,  'ship,'  and 
in  consequence  ought  strictly  to  be  limited  to 
294 


SPELLING    REFORM 

denoting  seasickness?  One  hour's  experience 
of  the  sensation  will  give  the  sufferer  a  keener 
appreciation  and  a  preciser  knowledge  of  the 
signification  than  a  whole  year's  study  of  the 
derivation.  Will  stirrup  be  employed  with 
greater  clearness  after  one  has  learned  that  in 
the  earliest  English  it  was  stige-rdp,  and  that 
accordingly  it  meant  the  '  rope '  by  which  one 
*  sties '  or  mounts  the  horse  ?  The  information 
thus  gained  has  an  independent  value  of  its  own. 
It  may  be  of  interest  as  satisfying  an  intelligent 
curiosity.  It  may  show  that  the  first  stirrups 
were  probably  made  of  ropes.  But  it  implies 
a  mistaken  and  confused  perception  of  what  is 
to  be  derived  from  etymological  study,  to  fancy 
that  as  a  result  of  it  any  one  will  have  a  better 
knowledge  of  this  particular  appendage  to  a 
saddle  or  use  the  term  denoting  it  with  more 
precision  and  expressiveness.  It  is  only  in  the 
exceptional  cases,  when  a  word  is  beginning  to 
wander  away  from  its  primitive  or  strictly  prop- 
er sense,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  derivation 
imparts  accuracy  of  use.  Yet  even  here  this 
knowledge  is  of  slight  value.  The  transition  of 
meaning  is  either  a  natural  development  which 
ought  not  to  be  held  in  check,  or  it  is  a  gen- 
eral perversion  which  the  etymological  train- 
ing of  the  few  is  in  most  cases  powerless  to  arrest, 
ao  295 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

One  form  of  this  fallacy  of  derivation  is  that 
which  connects  it  with  the  history  of  words- 
The  two  are  closely  allied.  They  are,  indeed,  so 
closely  allied  that  when  one  is  spoken  of,  it  is 
the  other  that  is  usually  meant.  We  are  often 
condescendingly  assured  by  the  opponent  of 
spelling  reform  that  its  advocates  forget  that 
words  have  a  history  of  their  own.  After  in- 
dulging in  this  not  particularly  startling  re- 
mark he  almost  invariably  goes  on  to  make 
clear  by  illustration  that  he  himself  has  no  con- 
ception of  what  it  means.  "Shall  we,"  asks  a 
writer,  after  reciting  this  well-worn  formula— 
"  shall  we  mask  the  Roman  origin  of  Cirencester 
and  Towcester  by  spelling  them  Sissiter  and 
Towster,"  as  they  are  pronounced?  Now  it 
may  not  be  wise,  for  various  reasons,  to  alter  the 
orthography  of  proper  names.  But  the  un- 
wisdom of  it  will  not  be  for  the  reason  here 
given.  In  this  case  it  is  evident  from  the  words 
accompanying  his  protest  that  what  the  decryer 
of  change  means  to  say  is  that  by  altering  the 
spelling  of  the  place  names,  their  history  would 
be  obscured.  What  he  actually  says,  however, 
is  that  their  derivation,  which  is  but  a  single 
point  in  their  history,  would  be  hidden  from  view. 

For  the  leading  idea  at  the  bottom  of  an  argu- 
ment of  this  sort,  if  it  has  any  idea  at  all,  must 
296 


SPELLING    REFORM 

necessarily  be  that  the  particular  form  which 
the  word  assumed  at  the  first  known  period  of 
its  existence  should  be  the  form  religiously- 
preserved  for  all  future  time.  Now,  if  orthog- 
raphy is  merely  or,  even  mainly,  to  represent 
etymology;  if,  further,  we  are  able  both  to  obtain 
and  retain  the  earliest  spelling,  there  is  method 
in  this  madness,  even  though  there  be  not 
much  sense.  But  of  the  first  form  we  have 
been  able  to  secure  the  knowledge  with  cer- 
tainty in  only  a  few  instances.  Far  fewer  are 
the  instances  in  which  we  have  retained  it. 
Almost  invariably  it  is  a  form  belonging  to  some 
later  period  that  is  adopted  and  set  before  us  as 
somehow  having  attained  sanctity.  This  im- 
puted sanctity  works  only  harm.  The  mainten- 
ance of  one  form  through  all  periods  not  only 
contributes  nothing  to  the  history  of  the  word, 
it  does  all  it  can  to  prevent  any  knowledge  of 
its  history  being  kept  alive.  For  it  is  the  spoken 
word  alone  that  has  life.  Only  by  the  changes 
which  the  written  word  undergoes  can  the 
record  of  that  life  be  preserved.  If  the  written 
word  remains  in  a  fossilized  condition,  all  di- 
rect knowledge  of  the  successive  stages  through 
which  the  spoken  word  passed,  disappears. 
The  moment  a  word  comes  to  have  a  fixed  un- 
changeable exterior  form,  no  matter  what 
297 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

alterations  may  take  place  in  its  interior  life, 
that  is  to  say,  in  its  pronunciation,  that  moment 
its  history,  independent  of  the  meaning  it  con- 
veys, becomes  doubtful  and  obscure.  This  is  the 
condition  to  which  English  vocables  are  largely 
reduced.  Their  successive  significations  can  be 
traced ;  but  knowledge  of  the  important  changes 
of  pronunciation  they  have  undergone  becomes 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  of  attainment. 

Two  terms  designating  common  diseases  may 
seem  to  illustrate  fairly  well  the  opposite  condi- 
tion of  things  here  indicated.  They  are  quinsy 
and  phthisic.  The  one  early  dropped  the  forms 
squinancy,  squinacy,  and  squincy,  which  belonged 
to  the  immediate  Romance  original.  To  that 
an  5  had  been  prefixed.  When  that  letter  ceased 
to  be  pronounced,  no  one  thought  of  retaining 
it.  So  for  that  reason  it  disappeared  from  the 
English,  just  as  for  the  opposite  reason  it  has 
been  preserved  in  the  corresponding  French 
word  esquinancie.  In  this  case  a  history  has 
been  unrolled  before  us.  It  is  not  unlike  that 
seen  in  the  supplanting  of  the  form  chirurgeon 
by  surgeon.  On  the  other  hand,  take  the  case  of 
the  word  phthisic,  as  now  ordinarily  written. 
This  form  gives  us  no  knowledge  of  the  real 
history  of  the  word.  From  other  sources  we 
learn  that  it  was  once  spelled  as  it  is  now  pro- 
298 


SPELLING    REFORM 

nounced.  The  most  current  of  several  forms 
was  tisik.  In  Milton  it  is  found  as  tizzic.  Such 
a  spelling  makes  evident  at  once  how  it  was  then 
sounded,  just  as  still  do  the  corresponding  tisico 
in  Italian  and  tisica  in  Spanish.  But  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  even  as  early  as  the 
sixteenth,  scholars  went  back  to  the  Greek 
original  and  imposed  upon  the  unfortunate  word 
the  combination  phth,  which  by  a  liberal  use  of 
the  imagination  is  supposed  to  have  somehow 
the  sound  of  t.  This  has  finally  come  to  prevail 
over  the  earlier  phonetic  spelling.  He  whose 
knowledge  of  the  word  is  confined  to  its  present 
form  is  almost  necessarily  led  to  believe  that 
it  was  taken  directly  from  its  remote  source. 
From  all  acquaintance  with  the  various  changes 
it  has  undergone,  and  with  the  pronunciation 
it  has  had  at  various  periods,  he  is  shut  out. 
Archbishop  Trench  has  pointed  out  the  transi- 
tion by  which  emmet  has  passed  into  ant  through 
the  intermediate  spellings  of  emet  and  amt, 
which  necessarily  represented  changes  of  sound.* 
By  this  means  a  history  has  been  unrolled  before 
us.  But  he  certainly  had  no  right  to  felicitate 
himself  upon  the  result.  If  his  theories  be  true, 
instead  of  spelling  the  word  as  we  pronounce  it, 

^English,  Past  and  Present,  p.  326. 
299 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

which  we  now  do,  we  ought  to  adopt  in  writing 
the  poetic  and  dialectic  emmet  at  least,  if  not 
the  earliest  known  form.  To  employ  his  own 
argument,  letters  silent  to  the  ear  would  still 
be  most  eloquent  to  the  eye.  In  this  particular 
case  some  of  us  would  be  made  happy  beyond 
expression  by  being  reminded  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  original  cemete. 

Even  using  history  in  the  narrow  and  im- 
perfect sense  in  which  those  who  advance  this 
argument  constantly  employ  it,  we  are  no 
better  off.  Nearly  every  old  word  in  the 
language  has  had  different  forms  at  different 
periods  of  its  existence.  Which  one  of  these  is 
to  be  selected  as  the  standard  ?  When  does  this 
so  -  called  history  begin  ?  Take  the  word  we 
spell  head.  Shall  we  so  write  it  because  it  is 
the  custom  to  do  so  now  ?  Or  shall  we  go  back 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon  original  hedfod?  Or  shall  we 
adopt  some  one  of  its  three  dozen  later  forms 
— such,  for  instance,  as  heved  or  heed  or  hed? 
This  last,  which  with  our  present  pronuncia- 
tion, would  be  a  pure  phonetic  spelling,  was  more 
or  less  in  use  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  reason  for  our  preference 
for  the  existing  form  has  no  other  basis  than  the 
habit  of  association  to  which  attention  has  been 
so  frequently  called.  We  do  not  spell  the  word 
300 


SPELLING    REFORA1 

as  head  because  it  gives  us  a  knowledge  of  the 
changes  which  have  taken  place  in  its  history, 
for  this  it  does  not  do  at  all.  Nor  do  we  so 
spell  it  because  it  gives  us  a  knowledge  of  its 
derivation,  for  this  it  does  very  little.  Nor 
further  do  we  so  spell  it  because  it  represents 
pronunciation,  for  this  it  does  still  less.  We 
cling  to  it  for  no  other  reason  than  that  we  are 
used  to  it.  What  is  here  said  of  head  can  be 
said  of  thousands  of  other  words. 

Even  in  the  case  of  Cirencester  and  Towcester, 
above  mentioned,  the  same  statement  holds  good. 
As  there  intimated,  proper  names  do  not  really 
enter  into  the  discussion  of  the  general  question. 
Being  individual  in  their  nature,  they  are  more 
or  less  under  the  control  of  the  individuals  who 
own  them.  These  can  and  do  exercise  the  right 
of  changing  at  will  their  orthography  and  their 
pronunciation.  But  for  the  sake  of  the  argu- 
ment, let  us  assume  that  it  would  be  a  gross 
outrage  to  spell  the  names  of  these  towns  as 
Sissiter  and  Touster.  Let  us  admit  that  by 
such  a  change  all  knowledge  of  their  Roman 
origin  would  be  lost  to  those  who  did  not  care 
enough  about  it  to  make  the  matter  a  subject 
of  special  study.  It  is  accordingly  a  natural 
and,  indeed,  a  perfectly  legitimate  inference,  that 
in  the  designation  of  towns  the  main  office  of 
301 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

their  orthography  is  to  point  out  who  founded 
them  or  how  they  chanced  to  come  into  being. 

If  this  be  so,  the  principle  ought  to  be  carried 
through  consistently.  What,  in  such  a  case, 
should  be  done  with  Exeter?  The  ancient  name 
was  Exanceaster ,  which  passed  through  various 
changes  of  form,  among  which  were  Exscester 
and  Excester.  As  early,  at  least,  as  the  reign  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  it  became  usually  Exeter.  If 
it  be  the  object  of  spelling  to  impart  informa- 
tion about  the  origin  of  places,  ought  we  not 
at  any  rate  to  return  to  the  form  Excester,  to 
remind  "  a  multitude  of  persons,  neither  accom- 
plished scholars  on  the  one  side,  nor  yet  wholly 
without  the  knowledge  of  all  languages  save  their 
own  on  the  other,"  that  the  Romans  once  had 
a  permanent  military  station  on  the  banks  of 
the  Exe  ?  It  is  to  be  feared  that  no  devotion  to 
derivation  would  lead  the  inhabitants  of  the 
city  to  sanction  such  a  change.  In  truth,  the 
value  of  all  knowledge  of  this  sort  is  something 
assumed,  not  really  substantiated.  The  few 
who  need  it,  or  wish  it,  can  easily  acquire  it 
without  the  necessity  of  perverting  orthography 
from  its  legitimate  functions  to  the  business  of 
imparting  it.  How  many  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Boston  in  Lincolnshire  and  of  Boston  in 
Massachusetts  lead  useful,  happy,  and  honored 
302 


SPELLING    REFORM 

lives,  and  go  down  to  their  graves  in  blissful 
unconsciousness  of  the  fact  that  the  name  of 
their  city  has  been  shortened  from  Botolph's 
Town!  How  many  of  them  are  aware,  indeed, 
that  such  a  saint  as  Botolph  ever  existed  at  all  ? 
In  truth,  all  knowledge  of  the  history  of  words 
ceases  for  most  of  us  the  moment  these  assume 
a  fixed  form,  independent  of  the  sounds  they 
purport  to  represent.  That  history  is  found 
in  the  pronunciation.  It  is  recorded  and 
revealed  to  us  only  by  the  variations  in  spelling 
which  variations  in  pronunciation  require.  In 
this  matter  the  attitude  of  the  past  and  of  the 
present  is  distinctly  at  variance.  Especially  is 
this  so  in  the  case  of  unpronounced  letters. 
Our  ancestors  discarded  such  without  scruple, 
whether  found  in  the  original  or  not.  We  cling 
to  them.  We  are  not  content  with  merely 
clinging  to  them.  The  more  in  the  way  they 
are,  the  more  we  cherish  them.  This  point  ^'s 
brought  out  strikingly  in  the  earlier  and  the 
later  treatment  of  two  initial  letters  which  ceased 
to  be  sounded.  These  are  k  and  h.  The  latter 
was  incontinently  dropped  in  writing  when  it 
failed  to  be  heard  in  the  pronunciation.  This, 
indeed,  was  done  so  long  ago  that  knowledge  of 
the  fact  that  the  letter  once  existed  at  the 
beginning  of  certain  words  is  now  mainly  con- 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

fined  to  the  students  of  our  earlier  speech.  In 
the  other  case  the  unpronounced  letter  is  still 
retained  in  the  spelling.  There  is  consequently 
no  way  for  us  to  determine  from  the  form  of  the 
word  when  this  initial  k  ceased  to  be  a  living 
force.  That  knowledge  must  be  gained  with 
more  or  less  of  certainty  from  an  independent 
investigation. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  there 
are  some  two  dozen  words  in  our  speech  in  which 
an  initial  k  followed  by  n  is  silent.^  If  the 
researches  of  Mr.  Ellis  can  be  trusted,  the 
dropping  of  the  sound  of  this  letter  from  pro- 
nunciation in  the  speech  of  the  educated  took 
place  in  the  seventeenth  century.  By  that  time 
English  orthography  was  beginning  to  be  sub- 
jected to  that  process  of  petrifaction  which 
consummated  its  work  in  the  century  following. 
The  external  form  in  existence  continued  to  be 
preserved  with  little  or  no  modification,  regard- 
less of  whatever  changes  took  place  in  its  in- 
ternal life.  Naturally  these  words  beginning 
with  an  unpronounced  k  fell  under  this  in- 
fluence. Take  as  an  illustration  the  word 
knave,  corresponding  to  the  German  knahe, 
'boy,'  and  having  originally  the  same  significa- 

^  See  page  165. 
304 


SPELLING    REFORM 

tion.  As  regards  its  meaning  the  English  word 
has  passed  through  the  successive  senses  of  boy, 
of  a  boy  as  servant,  of  a  servant  without  regard 
to  age,  of  a  rascally  servant,  and  finally  of  a 
simple  rascal  with  no  reference  to  the  time  of 
life  or  the  nature  of  employment.  There  it 
remains.  The  idea  both  of  boyhood  and  of 
service  has  entirely  disappeared.  That  of 
rascality,  not  at  all  implied  in  the  original,  has 
now  become  the  predominant  sense. 

In  the  case  of  the  signification,  we  have  there- 
fore a  complete  history  unrolled  before  us.  In 
the  case  of  the  form,  we  have  but  a  partial  his- 
tory. It  was  not  so  at  first.  In  the  earlier 
period  the  spelling  of  the  word  changed  with  its 
pronunciation.  The  original  was  cnafa.  The 
substitution  of  k  for  c  indicated  no  difference  in 
the  sound.  But  the  weakening  of  the  final  a 
to  e,  the  replacing  oi  f  by  v  denoted  the  prev- 
alence at  the  early  period  of  the  idea  that  the 
spelling  was  not  designed  to  defy  pronunciation, 
but  to  point  it  out.  Then  changes  made  in  it  are 
evidences  of  the  changes  that  had  been  going  on 
in  the  sound.  But  when  later  the  k  disappeared 
from  the  pronunciation,  no  attempt  was  made 
to  indicate  the  fact  by  dropping  it  also  from  the 
spelling.  By  that  time  the  printing-office  had 
begun  to  fasten  its  fangs  upon  the  language. 
305 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Consequently,  the  letter  no  longer  heard  by  the 
ear  was  carefully  retained  to  console  the  eye 
and  burden  the  memory. 

Now,  it  may  not  be  advisable — at  least,  for 
the  present — to  discard  the  unpronounced  initial 
letter  in  the  case  of  words  of  this  class;  this, 
too,  for  reasons  entirely  independent  of  the 
feelings  of  association.  The  revival  of  the 
phonetic  sense  among  the  men  of  the  English- 
speaking  race  is  possible  as  a  result  of  an  ex- 
tensive reform  of  English  spelling.  In  that  case 
the  pronunciation  of  k  before  n  might  be  re- 
sumed in  English  speech,  just  as  it  is  still  found 
in  German.  The  letter,  indeed,  continues  yet 
to  be  heard  in  English  dialects,  so  that  in  one 
sense  it  has  never  died  out.  Highly  improbable, 
therefore,  as  is  the  resumption  of  the  sound,  it 
is  at  least  possible.  This  consideration,  though 
it  can  not  form  an  argument,  may  suggest  a 
pretext  for  not  discarding  it  at  present.  But 
to  retain  it  on  the  ground  of  derivation  is  more 
than  irrational  in  itself.  It  is  absolutely  in- 
consistent with  the  attitude  which  has  been  taken 
and  is  now  universally  approved  in  the  case  of 
words  which  once  were  spelled  with  an  initial  h. 

Had  the  users  of  language  been  always  under 
the  sway  of  the  feelings  which  have  made  us 
keep  the  k,  no  small  number  of  common  words 
306 


SPELLING    REFORM 

which  now  begin  with  /,  n,  or  r  would  have 
these  letters  preceded  by  the  aspirate.  So  they 
were  at  first.  This  class  may  be  represented 
by  ladder  and  lot,  the  originals  of  which  were 
hlosdder  and  hlot;  by  neck  and  nut,  originally 
hnecca  and  hnut;  by  ring  and  roof,  originally 
hring  and  hrof.  The  letter  h,  having  disap- 
peared from  the  pronunciation,  our  fathers 
dropped  it  from  the  spelling.  The  most  ardent 
devotee  of  derivation  as  a  guide  to  orthography 
would  now  be  unwilling  to  restore  it.  The 
same  men  who  would  be  horrified  at  the  idea 
of  dropping  k  from  knoll  and  knife,  because  that 
letter  or  its  equivalent  is  found  in  the  original, 
would  be  equally  horrified  at  the  thought  of 
restoring  h  to  loud  and  nap  and  raven,  though 
in  all  of  them  it  once  flourished.  It  is  simply 
another  illustration  of  the  same  old  sham  of 
invoking  derivation  to  resist  any  change  in  the 
spelling  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  and  of 
disregarding  it,  and  even  defying  it,  when  we  are 
asked  to  carry  out  our  professed  principles  by 
altering  the  spelling  so  as  to  bring  it  into  accord- 
ance with  them. 

II 

There  is  still  another  objection  to  be  consid- 
ered.   We  are  given  to  understand  that  difference 
307 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

of  spelling  is  quite  essential  to  the  recognition  of 
the  meaning  of  words  pronounced  alike.  Other- 
wise there  would  be  danger  of  misapprehension. 
This  is  a  point  upon  which  Archbishop  Trench 
insisted  strongly.  He  discovered  that  great 
confusion  would  be  caused  by  writing  alike  words 
which  have  the  same  sound  when  heard,  but 
are  distinguished  to  the  sight.  Such,  for  illus- 
tration, are  son  and  sun,  rain  and  reign  and 
rein.  This  is  one  of  those  difficulties  which  are 
very  formidable  on  paper,  but  nowhere  else. 
It  is  what  comes  to  men  of  learning  from  look- 
ing at  language  wholly  from  the  side  of  the  eye 
and  not  at  all  from  that  of  the  ear.  In  the  con- 
troversy that  went  on  in  this  country  in  con- 
sequence of  the  President's  order,  I  noticed  that 
in  a  certain  communication  an  old  friend  of 
mine  specified  me  personally  as  one  setting  out 
to  destroy  what  he  called  sound  English  by 
arranging  letters  in  a  totally  different  way,  and 
thereby  seeking  to  reconstruct  the  language  to 
its  destruction.  Naturally,  he  was  indignant 
at  the  nefarious  attempt,  though  had  he  stopped 
to  consider  the  disproportion  between  the  petti- 
ness of  the  puny  agent  and  the  massiveness  of 
the  mighty  fabric,  there  would  have  appeared 
little  reason  for  much  excitement.  Personally, 
so  far  from  feeling  resentment  at  his  words,  I 
308 


SPELLING    REFORM 

read  them  with  even  more  amazement  than 
sorrow.  The  argument  he  used  is  of  the  sort 
which  I  expect  to  find  communicated  to  the 
press  by  that  noble  army  of  the  ill-informed  who 
are  always  rushing  to  the  rescue  of  the  English 
language  from  the  reckless  practices  of  those 
who  do  not  use  it  with  their  assumed  accuracy 
or  spell  it  according  to  their  ideas  of  propriety. 
But  here  the  objection  came  from  a  real  scholar. 
His  words  were,  therefore,  a  convincing  argu- 
ment for  the  necessity  of  reform.  They  revealed 
in  a  striking  way  the  bewildering  effect  our  or- 
thography exercises  over  the  reasoning  powers. 
He  wanted  to  know  what  the  phonetists — they 
deserve  that  name,  he  told  us — are  going  to  do 
with  words  alike  in  sound  but  different  in  sense. 
He  began  with  ale  and  ail.  It  might  have  been 
inferred  from  his  argument  that,  unless  ail  and 
ale  were  spelled  differently,  no  person  could 
ever  be  quite  certain  whether  he  were  suffering 
from  the  one  or  partaking  of  the  other.  An- 
other of  his  instances  was  bear  and  bare.  Does 
anybody,  on  hearing  either  of  these  words, 
hesitate  about  its  meaning?  Why  should  he, 
then,  when  he  sees  it,  even  if  both  were  spelled 
the  same  way  ?  Or  again,  take  the  noun  bear  by 
itself.  If  any  one  comes  across  it,  does  he  suffer 
much  perplexity  in  ascertaining  whether  it  is 
309 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

the  bear  of  the  wilderness  or  the  bear  of  Wall 
Street  that  is  meant? 

This  last  example,  indeed,  exposes  of  itself 
the  utter  futility  of  this  argument.  There  is 
an  indefinite  number  of  words  in  the  language 
which  have  precisely  the  same  form  as  nouns 
or  verbs.  The  fact  that  they  belong  to  different 
parts  of  speech  never  creates  the  slightest  con- 
fusion. Furthermore,  there  are  but  few  com- 
mon words  in  the  language  which  are  not  used 
in  different  senses,  often  in  many  different  senses, 
sometimes  in  widely  different  senses.  Does  that 
fact  cause  any  perceptible  perplexity  in  the 
comprehension  of  their  meaning  ?  Do  reporters, 
who  must  arrive  at  the  sense  through  the 
medium  of  the  ear,  experience  any  difficulty  in 
ascertaining  what  the  speaker  is  trying  to  say? 
Does  any  one  in  any  relation  of  life  whatever? 
When  a  man  is  returning  from  a  voyage  across 
the  Atlantic,  is  he  bothered  by  the  different 
significations  of  the  same  term  when  he  is  trying 
to  ascertain  whether  it  is  his  duty  to  pay  a  duty  ? 
When  one  meets  the  word  piece,  does  he  suffer 
from  much  embarrassment  in  determining 
whether  it  means  a  part  of  something,  or  a  fire- 
arm, or  a  chessman,  or  a  coin,  or  a  portion  of 
bread,  or  an  article  of  baggage,  or  a  painting,  or 
a  play,  or  a  musical  or  literary  composition? 
310 


SPELLING    REFORM 

Does  any  one  experience  trouble,  on  hearing 
a  sentence  containing  the  word  thick,  in  deter- 
mining whether  it  is  an  adjective  or  a  noun, 
or  whether  it  denotes  'dense,'  or  'turbid,'  or 
'abundant,'  or  a  measure  of  dimension?  Given 
the  connection  in  which  it  is  employed,  does 
any  one  mistake  rain  for  reign  or  reinf  The 
negative  answer  which  must  be  made  to  such 
questions  as  these  disposes  at  once  of  a  diffi- 
culty that  has  no  existence  outside  of  the 
imagination. 

In  fact,  language  presents  not  merely  many 
examples  of  words  with  the  same  spelling  which 
have  different  meanings,  but  sometimes  of 
those  that  have  exactly  opposite  meanings. 
Yet  that  condition  of  things  produces  no  con- 
fusion. Does  any  one  hesitate  about  what 
course  to  pursue  when  told,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
"stand  fast"  or  on  the  other  to  "run  fast?" 
Does  he  ever  in  actual  life  confound  the  word 
cleave,  when  it  means  to  adhere  with  the 
cleave  which  means  to  destroy  adherence  by 
splitting?  When  you  dress  a  fowl,  you  take 
something  off  it  or  out  of  it;  when  you  dress  a 
man,  you  put  something  on  him.  Or  take  an 
example  which  may  fairly  be  considered  as 
presenting  a  certain  obscurity  at  the  first  glance. 
In  his  ode  on  the  morning  of  Christ's  Nativity, 
ai  311 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

Milton  tells  us  that  "  Kings  sate  still  with  awful 
eye."  Here  awful  does  not  have  the  sense,  most 
common  with  us,  of  '  inspiring  awe,'  but  the 
strictly  etymological  one  of  '  full  of  awe.'  Yet 
no  one  proposes  to  indicate  by  difference  of 
spelling  a  difference  of  signification,  the  ascer- 
tainment of  which  depends  not  on  the  sight 
but  on  the  brain.  In  truth,  if  no  trouble  is  ex- 
perienced in  determining  the  meaning  of  words 
sounded  alike  in  the  hurry  of  conversation,  when 
the  hearer  has  but  a  moment  to  compare  the 
connection  and  comprehend  the  thought,  it  is 
certainly  borrowing  a  great  deal  of  unnecessary 
anxiety  to  fancy  that  embarrassment  could  be 
caused  in  reading,  where  there  is  ample  oppor- 
tunity to  stop  and  consider  the  context  and  re- 
flect upon  the  sense  which  the  passage  must 
have.  The  actual  existence  of  any  such  difih- 
culty  would  imply  an  innate  incapability  of 
comprehension  which,  were  it  even  justified  by 
the  individual  consciousness  of  the  asserter,  it 
would  be  manifestly  unfair  to  attribute  to  the 
whole  race. 

It  needs  but  a  moment's  consideration  to 
perceive  the  worthlessness  of  this  argument. 
Yet  let  us  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  those 
who  advance  it,  and  treat  it  as  if  it  had  some 
weight.  Let  us  assume  that  if  words  having 
312 


SPELLING    REFORM 

the  same  pronunciation  are  spelled  alike,  a  con- 
fused apprehension  would  be  produced  in  the 
reader's  mind.  But  are  these  believers  in  man's 
impenetrable  stupidity  willing  to  carry  out  the 
doctrine  they  profess  to  its  logical  conclusion? 
For  the  sake  of  preventing  this  assumed  con- 
fused state  of  mind,  are  they  willing  to  change 
the  spelling  of  words  which  have  precisely  the 
same  form  but  a  pronunciation  distinctly  dif- 
ferent? It  will  be  found  that  the  very  men  who 
clamor  for  the  retention  of  different  spellings 
for  words  pronounced  alike  are  just  as  insistent 
upon  the  retention  of  words  with  similar  spell- 
ings which  are  pronounced  unlike.  Of  these 
there  is  a  very  respectable  number  in  our  tongue. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  verbs  and  substantives 
which  have  precisely  the  same  form  on  paper, 
but  a  different  pronunciation.  We  lead,  for 
example,  an  expedition  to  discover  a  lead  mine. 
A  tarry  rope  may  cause  us  to  tarry.  This  in- 
consistency of  attitude  is  necessarily  more 
marked  in  words  belonging  to  the  same  part  of 
speech.  In  consequence,  a  burden  is  imposed 
upon  the  learner  of  mastering  a  distinction  which, 
in  a  language  sensibly  spelled,  would  be  ashamed 
to  put  in  a  plea  for  its  existence.  Slough,  '  a 
miry  place,'  has  as  little  resemblance  in  sound 
as  in  meaning  to  slough,  'the  cast-off  skin  of  a 
313 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

serpent.'  We  indicate  the  tear  in  our  eyes  and 
the  tear  in  our  clothes  by  words  which  have 
little  likeness  of  sound,  but  have  the  same  spell- 
ing in  the  written  speech.  We  could  go  on 
enumerating  examples  of  this  sort;  but  to 
what  end?  It  is  maintained,  according  to  the 
theory  enunciated  in  the  case  of  ail  and  ale, 
that  a  distinction  of  form  in  these  and  similar 
words  ought  to  be  insisted  upon  so  that  the 
reader  may  discover  without  effort  which  one 
is  meant.  But  the  application  of  this  very 
argument  would  be  at  once  scouted  were  an 
attempt  made  to  extend  the  principle  to  words 
spelled  alike  but  pronounced  differently.  This 
is  but  another  of  the  numberless  inconsistencies 
in  which  the  opponents  of  reform  find  them- 
selves plunged  when  they  attempt  to  stand  up 
for  the  existing  orthography  on  the  ground  of 
reason. 

Ill 

So  much  for  an  objection  which,  if  not  serious 
in  itself,  has  to  many  a  serious  look.  There  has 
been  another  brought  forward  which  is  so  base- 
less, not  to  call  it  comic,  that  nothing  but  the 
sincerity  of  those  adducing  it  would  justify  its 
consideration  at  all.  It  is  to  the  effect  that, 
were  there  any  thorough  reform  of  the  spelling, 
314 


SPELLING    REFORM 

all  existing  books  would  be  rendered  valueless. 
Owners  of  great  libraries,  built  up  at  the  cost  of 
no  end  of  time  and  toil  and  money,  would  see 
their  great  collections  brought  to  nought.  The 
rich  and  varied  literature  of  the  past  could  no 
longer  be  easily  read;  it  would  have  to  wait  for 
the  slow  work  of  presses  to  transmit  it  to  the 
new  generation  in  its  modern  form.  Such  is 
the  horrible  prospect  which  has  been  held  before 
our  eyes.  The  view  would  be  absurd  enough  if 
directed  against  thoroughgoing  phonetic  reform. 
But  as  against  the  comparatively  petty  changes 
which  are  proposed  and  which  alone  stand  now 
any  chance  of  adoption,  language  is  hardly 
vituperative  enough  to  describe  its  fatuousness. 
But  as  in  the  discussion  of  this  question  we  have 
to  deal  largely  with  orthographic  babes,  it  is 
desirable  to  pay  it  some  slight  attention. 

For  the  purpose  of  quieting  the  fears  which 
have  been  expressed,  it  is  necessary  to  observe 
that  change  of  anything  established,  even  when 
generally  recognized  as  for  the  better,  is  not 
accomplished  easily.  Therefore,  it  is  not  ac- 
complished quickly.  It  never  partakes  of  the 
nature  of  a  cataclysm.  For  its  reception  and 
establishment  it  requires  regular  effort,  not  im- 
pulsive effort;  it  requires  labor  prolonged  as 
well  as  patient.  It  took,  for  instance,  many 
315 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

scores  of  years  to  establish  the  metric  system 
wherever  it  now  prevails,  with  all  the  power  of 
governments  behind  it.  When  the  change  made 
depends  upon  the  voluntary  action  of  individuals 
it  must  inevitably  be  far  slower.  Any  reform 
of  spelling  in  English  speech  which  is  ever  pro- 
posed must  stretch  over  a  long  period  of  years 
before  it  is  universally  adopted.  There  will 
consequently  be  ample  time  for  both  publishers 
and  book-owners  to  set  their  houses  in  order 
before  the  actual  arrival  of  the  impending 
calamity. 

This  is  on  the  supposition  that  it  can  be 
deemed  a  calamity  to  either.  There  is  actually 
about  it  nothing  of  that  nature.  The  process 
deplored  is  a  process  which  is  going  on  every 
day  before  our  eyes.  There  is  not  an  author  of 
repute  in  our  literature  of  whose  works  new 
editions  are  not  constantly  appearing  in  order  to 
satisfy  a  demand  which  the  stock  on  hand  does 
not  supply.  Few,  comparatively,  are  the  in- 
stances in  which  a  classic  English  writer  is  read 
in  editions  which  came  out  during  his  lifetime. 
This  is  true  even  of  those  who  flourished  as  late 
as  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  How  many 
are  the  people  who  read  Thackeray,  Dickens, 
and  Macaulay  in  books  which  appeared  before 
the  death  of  these  authors  ?  If  there  is  any  de- 
316 


SPELLING    REFORM 

mand  for  their  works,  these  are  constantly  re- 
printed and  republished.  But  the  appearance 
of  the  new  book  does  not  lower  the  value  of 
the  old,  if  it  be  really  valuable.  If  it  be  not, 
if  the  edition  supplanted  is  of  an  inferior  char- 
acter or  has  been  merely  a  trade  speculation,  it 
has  already  served  its  purpose  when  it  has  paid 
for  itself.  Under  any  conditions  it  can  be 
trusted  to  meet  the  fate  it  deserves. 

So  much  for  the  point  of  view  of  booksellers 
and  book  -  owners.  As  regards  book  -  readers, 
the  fear  is  just  as  fatuous.  Few,  again,  are  the 
men  who  read  works  of  any  long  repute — nat- 
urally the  most  valuable  works  of  all — in  the 
spelling  which  the  author  used  who  wrote  them 
and  in  which  the  publisher  first  produced  them. 
It  is  not  because  the  difference  in  this  respect 
between  the  present  and  the  past  breeds  dislike- 
On  this  point  the  book-market  furnishes  in- 
controvertible testimony.  Valuable  works  which 
are  printed  in  an  orthography  different  from 
that  now  prevailing  do  not  decrease  in  price  at 
all.  On  the  contrary,  they  steadily  rise.  This 
is  a  fact  which  the  impecunious  student,  in 
search  of  early  editions,  learned  long  ago,  not  to 
his  heart's  content,  but  to  its  discontent.  The 
increase  in  value  renders  them  difficult  for  him 
to  procure.  Does  the  difference  of  spelling 
317 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

render  them  difficult  to  decipher?  A  single 
example  will  suffice  to  settle  that  point.  At  the 
present  moment  there  lies  before  me  the  first 
edition  of  the  greatest  English  satire  to  which 
the  strife  of  political  parties  has  given  birth — 
the  Absalom  and  Achitophel  of  John  Dryden.  It 
was  published  in  November,  1681.  To  purchase 
it  now  would,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  take 
far  more  money  than  it  would  to  buy  the  best 
and  completest  edition  of  the  whole  of  Dryden's 
poems.  It  consists  of  ten  hundred  and  twenty 
lines  of  rymed  heroic  verse.  The  number,  of 
different  words  it  contains  may  be  guessed  at 
from  that  fact;  it  has  never,  to  my  knowledge, 
been  determined.  But  the  words  which  are 
spelled  differently  in  it  from  what  they  are  now 
are  just  about  two  hundred. 

This  first  edition  itself  presents  certain  charac- 
teristics of  spelling  so  alien  to  our  present  or- 
thography that  it  suggests  that  those  now 
desiring  change  in  it  need  not  necessarily  be 
put  to  death  as  having  plotted  treason  against 
the  language.  In  truth,  the  examination  of  this 
one  poem,  as  it  originally  appeared,  would 
destroy  numerous  beliefs  which  ignorance  has 
created  and  tradition  handed  down  and  super- 
stition has  come  to  sanctify.  A  few  of  the  facts 
found  in  it  may  be  worth  recounting  for  the 
318 


SPELLING    REFORM 

benefit  of  those  who  fancy  that  forms  now  pre- 
vailing have  descended  to  us  from  a  remote 
past.  Among  the  two  hundred  variations  from 
the  now  prevalent  usage  are  the  past  participles 
allowd,  bard,  confind,  coold,  enclind,  faild, 
shund,  unquestiond,  and  banisht,  byast,  im- 
poverisht,  laught,  opprest,  pact,  puft,  snatcht. 
We  have  also  red  as  a  preterite  and  sed  as  a  par- 
ticiple. Further,  not  only  is  could  most  fre- 
quently spelled  coud,  which  is  etymologically 
right,  but  there  also  appears  shoud,  which  is 
phonetically  nearer  right  but  is  etymologically 
wrong.  Woud,  indeed,  is  distinctly  preferred  to 
would,  the  former  being  found  ten  times,  the 
latter  but  once.  Monarch  occurs  as  monark, 
mould  as  mold,  whole  and  wholesome  as  hole  and 
holsom.  Scepter  is  also  the  form  found,  and  not 
sceptre.  In  the  case  of  several  words  there  are 
still  not  unfrequent  those  variant  spellings  which 
were  common  before  the  printing  -  house  had 
established  our  present  uniformity,  or,  rather, 
approach  to  uniformity.  There  is  variation  in 
the  or,  our  forms  with,  on  the  whole,  a  distinct 
preference  for  the  latter,  as  might  have  been 
expected  when  the  influence  of  the  French 
language  and  literature  was  predominant.  La- 
bor, for  instance,  as  a  noun  or  verb,  occurs  full 
two  dozen  times.  In  every  instance  it  is  spelled 
319 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

labour.  So  also  in  the  same  way  are  found 
authour,  emperour,  inventoiir,  oratour,  supe- 
riour,  successour,  tutour,  and  warriour.  Not  the 
sHghtest  hint  of  these  and  such  like  facts  can 
be  gathered  from  editions  now  current.  This 
single  illustration  brings  out  strongly  the  practice 
of  the  modern  publisher  in  printing  the  writings 
of  the  great  authors  of  the  past,  not  in  the  or- 
thography they  themselves  employed  but  in 
that  which  recent  custom  has  chosen  to  set  up 
in  its  place.  Still,  with  all  these  differences  just 
mentioned,  and  others  not  specified,  the  most 
unintelligent  opponent  of  spelling  reform  would 
experience  no  difficulty  whatever  in  reading  the 
poem. 

IV 

Another  objection  remains  to  be  considered. 
It  is  not  really  directed  against  any  proposals 
made  by  any  organized  bodies  which  have  taken 
up  the  consideration  of  the  subject.  These 
to  use  the  distinction  already  specified,  devote 
themselves  to  reform  in  English  orthography 
and  not  to  reform  of  it.  This  latter  is  the  object 
aimed  at  by  individuals  and  not  by  societies. 
Consequently,  this  objection  does  not  strictly 
concern  the  plans  for  simplification  now  before 
the  public.  It  is  really  directed  against  the 
320 


SPELLING    REFORM 

far  wider-reaching  reform  which  would  aim  to 
render  the  spelHng  phonetic.  It  is  regarded 
by  some  as  so  crushing  that  I  have  deferred  its 
consideration  to  the  last.  It  may  be  summed 
up  in  a  few  words.  Variations  of  sound  are 
almost  numberless.  They  cause  a  marked 
difference  of  pronunciation  among  individuals, 
a  more  marked  difference  between  different 
parts  of  the  same  country.  Furthermore,  they 
are  often  so  delicate  as  almost  to  defy  represen- 
tation. You  could  not  denote  them  if  you 
would;  and  if  you  could,  you  would  be  encum- 
bered, rather  than  aided,  by  the  multiplicity  of 
signs.  It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  have  our 
tongue  spelled  phonetically,  because  it  is  pro- 
nounced differently  by  different  persons  equally 
well  educated.  Whose  pronunciation  will  you 
adopt?  That  is  the  point  which  has  first  to  be 
determined.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  it  is  one 
which  can  never  be  determined  satisfactorily. 
That  fact  is  of  itself  decisive  of  the  matter  in 
dispute. 

This  view  of  the  question  at  issue  is  trium- 
phantly put  forward  as  one  which  can  never 
be  successfully  met.  Assuming  for  the  sake  of 
the  argument  that  it  is  a  genuine  objection,  let 
us  look  at  what  it  involves.  The  very  result  of 
the  lawlessness  of  our  present  orthography  is 
321 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

given  as  the  reason  why  no  attempt  should  be 
made  to  bring  it  under  the  reign  of  law.  It  is  a 
real  maxim  in  morals,  and  a  theoretical  one  in 
jurisprudence,  that  an  offender  has  no  right  to 
take  advantage  of  his  own  wrong.  This  is  the 
very  course,  however,  which  opponents  of  change 
recommend  for  adoption.  Our  orthography 
has  rendered  the  orthoepy  varying  and  doubt- 
ful. No  one  can  tell  from  the  spelling  of  a  word 
how  it  ought  to  be  pronounced.  The  result  is 
that  it  is  pronounced  differently  by  different 
men.  Accordingly,  there  should  be  no  attempt 
to  reduce  the  orthography  to  order,  because  the 
uncertainty  which  has  been  fastened  upon  it 
by  the  pronunciation  has  rendered  it  impossible 
to  ascertain  what  it  really  ought  to  be. 

But  it  never  seems  to  occur  to  those  who 
advance  this  argument  that  difficulties  of  the 
sort  here  indicated  are  not  experienced  in 
languages  which  for  all  practical  purposes  are 
phonetically  spelled,  such  as  Italian  and  Spanish. 
Even  German  can  be  included,  because  its  varia- 
tions from  the  normal  standard  do  not  extend 
to  the  great  source  of  our  woes,  the  arbitrary  and 
different  sounds  given  to  the  vowels  and  com- 
binations of  vowels.  But  take,  for  example,  the 
first  mentioned  of  these  tongues.  Its  pronun- 
ciation differs  in  different  parts  of  the  country. 
322 


SPELLING    REFORM 

In  some  cases  the  variation  is  very  distinctly 
marked.  Yet,  while  the  spelling  remains  the 
same,  no  embarrassment  follows  of  the  kind  in- 
dicated. If  this  simple  fact  had  been  taken  into 
consideration,  it  would  at  once  have  disclosed  the 
nature  of  the  imaginary  strength  and  actual 
weakness  of  this  supposedly  crushing  argument. 
For  of  all  the  hallucinations  that  disturb  the 
mental  vision  of  the  advocates  of  the  existing 
orthography,  this  is  perhaps  the  most  dismal 
as  it  is  the  most  unreal.  No  phonetically  spelled 
tongue  ever  has  or  ever  would  set  out  to  record 
the  varying  shades  of  the  pronunciation  of  any 
country,  still  less  the  varying  shades  of  the  pro- 
nunciation of  individuals.  A  system  which 
indicates  the  delicate  distinction  of  sounds 
characterizing  the  speech  of  different  regions 
resembles  the  chemist's  scales,  which  detect  the 
variation  in  weight  of  filaments  of  hair  to  all 
appearance  precisely  alike.  Instrumentalities 
of  this  nature  phoneticians  may  need  and  use 
in  order  to  represent  the  slightest  diversities 
of  pronunciation.  They  can  and  do  get  up  for 
their  own  guidance  characters  conveying  differ- 
ences even  of  intonation.  But  these  the  ordi- 
nary speaker  does  not  require  at  all.  Instead 
of  benefiting  him,  they  would  be  in  his  way. 
For  the  average  man,  even  of  highest  cultiva- 
323 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

tion,  it  is  no  more  important  that  shades  of 
pronunciation  should  be  denoted  in  his  alpha- 
bet than  it  would  be  important  for  him  to  lug 
about  in  all  temperatures  and  in  all  climates 
an  astronomical  clock  with  a  compensation  pen- 
dulum. What  any  working  phonetic  system 
would  set  out  to  do  is  to  give  those  broad  and 
easily  recognizable  characteristics  of  educated 
utterance  which  are  sufficient  to  indicate  to 
the  hearer  what  the  speaker  is  aiming  to  say. 
It  would  represent  a  norm  sufficiently  narrow  of 
limit  to  make  understood  what  is  said,  and  suf- 
ficiently broad  to  offer  within  justifiable  bounds 
ample  opportunity  for  the  play  of  individual 
or  territorial  peculiarities.  Its  principal  effect 
would  be  to  set  up  a  standard  which  would  be 
ever  before  the  eyes  of  men. 

In  truth,  the  comparison  just  made  is  sufficient 
of  itself  to  lay  this  ghastly  specter  of  an  argu- 
ment which  haunts  so  persistently  the  imagina- 
tion of  many  opponents  of  phonetic  spelling. 
It  is  with  our  pronunciation  as  with  our  time- 
pieces. None  of  our  watches  run  precisely 
alike.  Few  if  any  can  be  called  unqualifiedly 
correct.  For  all  that,  with  the  aid  of  these 
imperfect  and  never  precisely  agreeing  instru- 
ments, we  manage  to  transact  with  little  friction 
and  delay  the  daily  business  of  a  life  in  which 
324 


SPELLING    REFORM 

we  have  constantly  to  wait  upon  one  another's 
movements.  So,  in  the  matter  of  sounds,  a 
phonetic  alphabet  would  denote  only  those 
clearly  recognizable  distinctions  which  are 
apparent  to  the  ear  of  ordinary  men.  Orthog- 
raphy based  upon  such  an  alphabet  would 
assume  as  the  very  foundation  upon  which  to 
build  itself  the  existence  of  a  recognized  standard 
orthoepy.  It  is  that  alone  which  the  spelling 
would  represent.  Provincial  speakers  in  con- 
sequence would  have  always  before  their  eyes 
in  the  form  of  the  word  its  exact  and  proper  pro- 
ntmciation.  By  it  they  would  be  able  to  com- 
pare and  if  necessary  to  correct  their  own. 

But  we  may  be  told  that  while  a  standard 
time  actually  exists,  a  standard  pronunciation 
does  not.  Consequently,  no  phonetic  spelling 
can  be  established  which  will  be  regarded  by 
any  large  portion  of  the  general  public  as  satis- 
factory. The  all-sufficient  answer  to  this  objec- 
tion is  that  the  very  thing  which  it  is  said  can- 
not be  done  has  been  already  done  and  done 
many  times.  It  has  been  done,  too,  in  the  face 
of  the  very  objection  that  it  could  not  be  done 
at  all.  The  proof  of  this  statement  lies  in  the 
existence  of  the  pronouncing  dictionary.  Works 
of  this  nature  did  not  appear  until  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Before  they 
325 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

appeared  the  project  of  producing  them  was 
criticised  with  extreme  severity.  They  were 
denounced  as  irrational  of  nature  and  as  im- 
possible of  execution.  The  same  arguments,  as- 
sumed to  be  convincing,  were  produced  against 
them  as  those  just  considered  against  uniform 
phonetic  spelling.  Doctor  Johnson  brought 
the  artillery  of  his  ponderous  polysyllables  to 
bear  upon  them.  He  proved — at  least,  to  his 
own  satisfaction — the  utter  futility  of  Sheridan's 
scheme  of  preparing  a  work  of  this  nature.  His 
argument  was  based  entirely  on  the  ground  of 
the  wide  differences  prevailing  in  pronunciation. 
In  spite  of  these  arguments  pronouncing  dic- 
tionaries were  prepared.  At  a  comparatively 
early  period  several  appeared  in  rapid  succession. 
They  are  now  so  thoroughly  established  in  the 
affections  of  us  all  that  were  a  dictionary  to 
leave  out  this  characteristic  it  would  cease  to 
have  consideration  and  sale.  But  a  work  of 
such  sort  goes  upon  the  assumption  that  there 
is  a  standard  pronunciation.  Otherwise  it 
would  have  no  justification  for  its  own  exist- 
ence. Its  compilers  seek  to  ascertain  and 
represent  this  standard.  A  word,  indeed,  may 
be  and  not  unfrequently  is  pronounced  dif- 
ferently by  different  classes  of  educated  men. 
In  that  case  both  or  all  sounds  of  it  will  be  rec- 
326 


SPELLING    REFORM 

ognized — at  least,  until  such  time  as  one  has 
come  to  prevail  over  the  other  or  over  all  others. 
The  pronouncing  dictionary  was  indeed  a 
necessity  of  the  situation.  It  was  called  by 
Archbishop  Trench  "  the  absurdest  of  all 
books."  On  what  ground  it  can  be  called 
absurd  by  an  advocate  of  the  existing  orthog- 
raphy it  is  hard  to  determine.  It  is,  without 
doubt,  a  clumsy  substitute  for  phonetic  spelling. 
It  is  not  for  him,  however,  who  protests  against 
such  spelling  to  denounce  the  aid  to  correct 
pronunciation,  imperfect  as  it  may  be,  which 
has  been  rendered  absolutely  essential  by  the 
general  prevalence  of  the  beliefs  he  accepts  and 
defends.  Had  pronouncing  dictionaries  not 
come  to  exist,  the  divergence  which  has  been 
going  on  between  spelling  and  pronunciation  in 
consequence  of  our  lawless  orthography  would 
have  rapidly  extended  with  the  extension  of  the 
language  and  with  the  increasing  number  of 
those  who  came  to  speak  it,  dwelling  as  they  do 
in  regions  far  apart.  Diversities  of  pronuncia- 
tion would  have  been  sure  to  spring  up  in  such 
a  case  even  among  the  educated  classes,  to  say 
nothing  of  those  prevailing  in  classes  of  different 
social  grades  living  almost  in  contact.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  such  do  spring  up  now.  They 
must  necessarily  continue  to  spring  up  in  a  lan- 
"  327 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

guage  where  the  spelling  is  not  under  the  sway 
of  phonetic  law.  But  they  are  reduced  to  the 
lowest  possible  terms,  in  consequence  of  the 
wide  use  of  pronouncing  dictionaries.  Between 
the  authorizations  of  these  there  are  at  times 
divergences,  but  the  agreements  are  far  more 
numerous  than  the  divergences.  Hence,  the 
authorizations  are  sufficient  to  keep  the  lan- 
guage fairly  uniform.  Furthermore,  these  works 
bring  out  clearly  the  truth  of  the  statement 
with  which  this  chapter  began:  that  every 
speaker  of  English  has  to  learn  two  languages. 
In  dictionaries,  the  one  he  reads  and  writes 
is  given  the  place  of  honor  on  the  printed 
page.  To  it  he  turns  whenever  for  any  purpose 
he  wishes  to  consult  its  meaning.  Following 
after  it,  whenever  the  word  is  not  itself  phonet- 
ically spelled,  is  the  form  of  it,  usually  in  paren- 
theses, as  it  is  heard  from  the  lips  of  men.  To 
this  he  turns  for  its  pronunciation. 

No  project  is  entertained  by  any  organized 
body  to  establish  phonetic  spelling.  It  can 
hardly  be  said  to  exist  outside  of  dictionaries. 
These  have  to  employ  it  or  some  approach  to  it 
in  order  to  convey  to  the  users  of  language  a 
conception  of  the  proper  pronunciation  which 
the  form  itself  does  not  indicate.  The  discussion 
of  the  subject  is,  therefore,  an  academic  ques- 
328 


SPELLING    REFORM 

tion  rather  than  a  practical  one.  But  this  it  is 
desirable  to  say  about  it.  Phonetic  spelling  is 
not  a  destructive  but  a  conservative  agency. 
Just  as  the  creation  of  literature  holds  a  lan- 
guage fast  to  its  moorings,  just  as  it  renders  it 
stable  by  arresting  all  speedy  verbal  or  gram- 
matical change,  so  the  establishment  of  pho- 
netic spelling  would  operate  upon  orthoepy. 
The  exact  pronunciation  would  be  imposed  upon 
the  word  by  its  very  form.  No  one  could  mis- 
take it,  no  one  would  be  tempted  to  disregard  it. 
From  it  there  would  never  be  variation  save  when 
a  change  in  the  sound  imperatively  demand- 
ed a  change  in  the  spelling  to  indicate  it.  This 
is  a  counsel  of  perfection  which  we  can  recognize 
as  desirable,  but  need  never  expect — at  least,  in 
our  day — to  see  realized.  None  the  less  can  we 
discern  the  benefits  that  would  result  from  it. 
Had  it  existed  with  us,  the  wide  degradation  of 
that  sound  of  a  which  is  represented  in  father 
and  far  could  not  have  gone  on  at  the  rapid  rate 
it  has  done  in  this  country.  There  are  districts 
in  the  United  States  where  even  the  following 
/  does  not  protect  it,  and  calm,  for  illustration,  is 
made  to  ryme  with  clam.  Did  phonetic  spell- 
ing exist  in  the  mother  country,  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  a  almost  like  "long  i" — as,  for  example, 
late,  which  by  American  ears  is  apt  to  be  mis- 
329 


SPELLING    REFORM 

taken  for  light^now  so  prevalent  in  London  and 
apparently  extending  over  England,  could  never 
have  held  its  ground,  even  with  those  who  had 
received  but  a  limited  education.  With  an 
orthography  which  has  no  recognizable  standard 
of  correct  usage,  degradations  of  this  sort  are 
always  liable  to  occur;  nothing,  in  fact,  can  keep 
them  from  occurring. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE    FINAL    CONSIDERATION 

THERE  remains  one  final  consideration. 
No  one  who  has  had  the  patience  to  ex- 
examine  dispassionately  the  facts  contained  in 
the  preceding  chapters  can  have  failed  to  rec- 
ognize the  loss  of  time  and  waste  of  effort 
which  the  acquisition  of  our  present  orthography- 
involves.  Beside  these,  the  needless  squandering 
of  money  it  causes,  though  a  subject  of  just 
complaint,  seems  to  me,  after  all,  of  slight  ac- 
count. But  even  evils  of  this  sort,  great  as  they 
unquestionably  are,  yield  in  importance  to  one 
far  greater.  In  truth,  it  is  not  because  of  the 
waste  of  time  in  education — harmful  as  that 
unquestionably  is — that  our  present  orthography 
is  peculiarly  objectionable.  It  is  the  direct 
influence  the  acquisition  of  it  exerts  in  putting 
the  intellectual  faculties  to  sleep  at  the  most 
active  period  of  life.  Learning  to  spell  is,  with 
us,  a  purely  mechanical  process.  As  a  mental 
discipline  it  is  as  utterly  valueless  as  mere 
memorizing,  where  the  student  does  not  un- 
331 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

derstand  what  he  is  repeating.  Like  that,  it 
is  also  a  positive  intellectual  injury.  At  the 
very  outset  of  his  school  life  the  child  is  in- 
troduced into  a  study  in  which  one  natural  and 
most  important  process  in  education,  that  of  rea- 
soning from  analogy,  is  summarily  suppressed. 
He  finds  at  once,  because  the  sound  in  one 
word  is  represented  in  one  way,  that  it  does  not 
follow,  as  it  ought,  that  in  the  next  word  he 
comes  to  it  will  be  represented  the  same  way. 
On  the  contrary,  he  finds  it  denoted  by  an  en- 
tirely different  combination  of  letters  for  no  rea- 
son which  he  can  possibly  discover.  It  accord- 
ingly never  enters  his  head  that  a  sign,  whether 
consisting  of  a  single  letter  or  a  digraph,  repre- 
sents a  particular  sound  and  strictly  ought  never 
to  represent  but  one.  For  him  it  can  and 
usually  does  represent  any  one  of  half-a-dozen. 
This  of  itself  tends  to  deprive  him  of  the  pos- 
session of  all  knowledge  of  the  number  and 
value  of  the  sounds  belonging  to  our  speech. 
Unfortunately  such  a  result  is  not  the  worst. 
The  far  more  serious  injury  caused  is  the  in- 
fluence exerted  upon  the  mind  by  the  pro- 
hibition which  the  acquiring  of  our  present 
orthography  succeeds  in  imposing  upon  the 
exercise  of  the  reason. 

We    can    get    some    glimpse    of    the    havoc 
332 


SPELLING    REFORM 

wrought  to  the  reasoning  powers  by  considering 
a  single  one  of  hundreds  of  illustrations  that 
could  be  cited.  At  the  very  outset  of  his  study 
the  child  is  given,  for  example,  the  words  bed 
and  red  to  spell.  If  he  has  been  properly  trained 
up  to  this  point,  the  limited  acquaintance  he 
has  made  with  the  values  of  letters  leads  him 
to  say  b-e-d  and  r-e-d.  These  are  pure  phonetic 
spellings.  They  satisfy  all  the  conditions. 
Then  he  is  introduced  to  the  word  head.  Rea- 
soning from  analogy,  he  proceeds  to  spell  it 
h-e-d.  But  here  authority  steps  in  and  directs 
him  to  insert  another  letter  for  which  neither  he 
nor  his  instructor  can  see  the  use.  Then  the 
word  bead  is  shown  him.  Following  the  analogy 
of  head,  he  naturally  pronounces  it  bed.  Once 
more  authority  steps  in  and  directs  him  to  give 
the  combination  ea  another  and  quite  distinct 
sound.  Next,  he  is  presented  with  the  infinitives 
and  presents,  read  and  hear.  Conforming  to  the 
example  just  given,  and  perceiving  it  to  be 
satisfactory,  he  fancies  that  he  has  reached  at 
last  a  secure  haven.  He  finds  his  error  when  he 
meets  the  preterites  of  these  two  verbs.  Both 
have  the  same  vowel  combinations  as  the  present. 
One  of  them  has  precisely  the  same  form.  But 
he  discovers  that  read  of  the  preterite  has  quite 
a  distinct  pronunciation  from  read  of  the  present, 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

and  that  the  ea  of  heard  has  still  another  sound, 
distinct  from  that  of  either,  to  which  he  has  not 
yet  been  introduced. 

This  condition  of  things  is  one  which  in  numer- 
ous cases  cannot  easily  be  remedied,  owing  to 
the  lawlessness  prevaiHng  in  our  representation 
of  sounds.  For  the  present,  therefore,  it  may 
have  to  stand.  But  let  us  take  up  one  or  two 
cases  where  irrationality  now  prevails,  and  yet 
where  a  rational  change  can  be  made  easily.  It 
would,  for  instance,  assuredly  seem  hard  for  a 
being  who  possesses  intellect  enough  to  be  lost 
or  saved  to  pretend  that  he  sees  any  reason  why 
the  plural  of  words  ending  in  o  should  end  some- 
times with  simple  5  and  sometimes  with  es.  Oc- 
casionally they  have  both  terminations,  accord- 
ing to  the  fancy  of  the  individual  writer.  For 
illustration,  the  plurals  of  grotto,  halo,  memento, 
motto,  and  negro  are  spelled  by  some  authors  with 
OS  and  by  others  with  oes.  In  the  case  of  hero,  the 
latter  ending  has  become  the  one  regularly  em- 
ployed. This  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  singular  once  ended  in  e.  Discarded  from 
that,  it  has  transferred  its  unnecessary  existence 
to  the  plural.  As  the  large  majority  of  these 
words  never  had  the  ^  as  a  termination,  there 
seems  not  to  be  the  slightest  excuse  on  the 
ground  either  of  derivation  or  pronunciation  for 
334 


SPELLING    REFORM 

inserting  anywhere  in  the  inflection  the  un- 
necessary letter.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
seems  every  reason  for  making  the  spelHng  of 
the  termination  of  this  class  of  words  uniform. 
Yet  men  will  be  found  to  insist  in  imposing  upon 
the  learner  the  task  of  mastering  a  distinction 
which  serves  no  other  purpose  than  to  defy 
analogy  and  insult  common  sense. 

Or  take  another  sort  of  trouble  which  adds 
its  burden  to  early  education  and  contributes 
its  share  to  the  impairment  of  the  reasoning 
powers.  In  the  case  of  certain  w^ords  the  child 
is  censured  if  he  leaves  a  letter  out.  In  the  case 
of  other  words  of  precisely  the  same  character 
and  origin  he  is  censured  if  he  puts  it  in.  He  is 
asked,  for  example,  to  spell  the  conjunction  till. 
The  men  who  first  employed  the  word  had  no 
use  for  but  one  /.  They  therefore  did  not  double 
it.  Now  if  the  child  spells  it,  as  did  his  remote 
ancestors,  with  a  single  /,  he  is  blamed;  but 
when  he  comes  to  its  compound  until,  he  is 
blamed  again  if  he  spells  it  with  two  I's.  If  such 
differences  of  form  served  any  purpose  whatever, 
some  justification  might  be  pleaded  for  their 
maintenance.  But  nothing  of  the  sort  do  they 
do.  They  simply  heap  up  the  burden  of  useless 
or  rather  harmful  knowledge  with  which  children 
are  compelled  to  load  their  memory  in  defiance 
335 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

of  their  reason.  Time  which  should  be  spent  in 
learning  something  valuable  in  itself,  and  there- 
fore permanently  profitable,  is  now  wasted  in 
mastering  empty  distinctions  in  the  external 
representation  of  words  which  have  no  dis- 
tinction in  reality,  but  are  reckoned  conven- 
tionally of  the  first  importance. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  in  circumstances  like 
these  the  child  should  speedily  infer  that  it  is  of 
no  benefit  to  him  to  make  use  of  what  little 
reasoning  power  he  has  been  enabled  to  acquire  ? 
He  must  force  himself  to  submit  blindly  to  au- 
thority, which  compels  him  to  accept  as  true 
what  he  feels  to  be  false.  Now,  authority  in 
education  is  a  good  as  well  as  a  necessary  thing 
when  its  dictates  are  based  upon  reason.  But 
when  they  are  not,  when  in  truth  they  are  de- 
fiant of  reason,  no  more  pernicious  element  can 
well  enter  into  the  training  of  the  young.  Doubt- 
less the  logical  processes  employed  in  other 
studies  correct  in  time  for  most  of  us  the  mental 
twist  thus  imparted  in  childhood.  But  it  is 
not  always  corrected.  We  have  only  to  read 
certain  of  the  arguments  advanced  against 
spelling  reform  to  become  aware  that  the  faculty 
of  reasoning  on  this  subject  which  has  been 
muddled  in  childhood  is  apt  to  remain  muddled 
the  rest  of  one's  life. 


SPELLING    REFORM 

One  illustration  will  bring  out  pointedly  the 
truth  of  this  last  assertion.  There  is  frequent 
complaint  that  the  children  in  our  schools  spell 
badly.  In  this  there  is  nothing  new.  It  is  a 
charge  which  has  been  made  in  every  genera- 
tion since  spelling  assumed  the  abnormal  im- 
portance which  has  been  imparted  to  it  by 
modern  devotion.  In  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
often  understood  the  complaint  has  no  founda- 
tion in  fact.  Children  spell  just  as  well  now 
as  they  did  a  generation  or  generations  ago. 
If  anything — persons  of  different  periods,  but 
belonging  to  the  same  class  being  alone  taken 
into  consideration — the  proportion  of  so-called 
good  spellers  will  pretty  certainly  be  found  larger 
now  than  ever  before.  But  there  always  has 
been,  and  so  long  as  our  present  absurd  orthog- 
raphy continues  there  always  will  be,  a  goodly 
number  of  persons  by  whom  it  will  never  be 
thoroughly  acquired.  By  many  a  respectable 
mastery  of  it  will  not  be  gained  till  a  com- 
paratively late  period  in  their  education.  All 
this,  too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  in  the  popular 
mind  correctness  of  spelling  has  assumed  an 
exceptional  importance.  A  man  can  blunder 
in  his  statement  of  facts;  he  can  lay  down  false 
premises  and  draw  from  them  the  absurdest 
conclusions;  he  can  exhibit  incompetence  and 

337 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

inconsequence  in  the  discussion  of  matters  im- 
portant or  unimportant — yet  none  of  these 
gross  manifestations  of  ignorance  and  in- 
capacity will  bring  him  so  much  discredit  in 
the  eyes  of  many  as  the  inability  to  spell  certain 
common  words  properly.  There  is  something 
even  worse  than  this.  In  many  communities  a 
man  may  be  a  drunkard  or  a  libertine  with  far 
less  injury  to  his  reputation  than  the  disclosure 
of  the  fact  that  he  is  unable  to  spell  correctly. 

This  state  of  feeling  has  imparted  to  spelling 
a  factitious  importance  in  modern  education. 
But  it  involves  further  an  inconsistency  in  the 
course  of  many  of  the  stoutest  defenders  of  the 
present  orthography.  These  are  often  seeking 
to  reconcile  things  which  are  incompatible. 
No  more  frequent  attacks  are  made  upon  the 
system  of  education  prevalent  in  our  higher 
institutions  of  learning  than  the  stress  they  are 
supposed  to  lay  upon  the  cultivation  of  the 
memory  instead  of  the  reason.  Now,  if  there  be 
any  truth  in  this  accusation,  the  course  adopted 
is  nothing  more  than  an  extension  to  the  ad- 
vanced student  of  the  very  processes  which  are 
used  in  the  instruction  of  the  child.  In  learning 
to  spell,  his  memory  is  developed  not  merely  in 
place  of  the  reason,  but  too  often  in  defiance  of 
it.  Yet  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty  it  will 
338 


SPELLING    REFORM 

be  found  that  the  very  persons  who  indulge  in 
the  most  lugubrious  lamentations  about  the 
subordination  of  the  reason  to  the  memory  in 
the  educational  processes  employed  in  our  uni- 
versities, are  the  ones  who  insist  most  strongly 
upon  the  retention  of  an  orthography  which 
tends  inevitably  to  produce  the  very  effect  they 
profess  to  deplore.  In  one  breath  they  com- 
plain of  the  poor  spelling  of  the  students  in  our 
schools  and  colleges.  In  the  next  breath  they 
object  to  any  alterations  which  would  bring 
order  where  now  all  is  inconsistency  and  con- 
fusion; to  changes  of  any  sort  which  would 
make  English  orthography  approach  nearer 
rationality,  and,  therefore,  easier  to  acquire.  Is 
it  not  fair  to  consider  this  attitude  on  their  part 
a  direct  result  of  that  mental  twist  already 
mentioned  as  imparted  in  childhood? 

I  do  not  believe  myself  that  the  English  race, 
once  fully  awakened  to  the  exact  character  of 
English  orthography,  will  cling  forever  to  a 
system  which  wastes  the  time  of  useful  years, 
and  can  only  exhibit  as  its  best  educational 
result  the  development  of  the  memory  at  the 
expense  of  the  reasoning  powers.  I  do  not 
underrate  the  immensity  of  the  obstacles  which 
lie  in  the  path  of  those  who  set  out  to  accomplish 
even  the  slightest  change.  There  is,  first  and 
339 


ENGLISH    SPELLING    AND 

foremost,  the  impossibility  of  effecting,  in  the 
present  state  of  pubHc  opinion,  any  thorough- 
going and  therefore  completely  consistent  re- 
form. In  any  partial  reform  which  can  be 
secured  there  will  be  certain  to  remain  in- 
conveniences and  inconsistencies  which  it  must 
be  left  to  the  future  to  correct.  At  these  the 
objector  can  always  plausibly  carp.  But  there 
is  something  more  than  the  difficulty  inherent 
in  the  matter  itself.  This  is  the  immensity  of  the 
efforts  demanded  to  destroy  the  superstition  as 
to  the  sanctity  of  this  creation,  not  of  scholars, 
but  of  printers,  which  we  call  English  orthog- 
raphy. Even  to  do  this  preliminary  work  will 
require  the  time  and  toil  of  years  of  struggle. 
The  fact  is  perhaps  not  much  to  be  regretted. 
There  is  nothing  worth  living  for  that  is  not 
worth  fighting  for.  But  the  task  is  no  light  one. 
Not  merely  have  ignorance  and  prejudice  to  be 
overcome,  but,  what  is  far  worse,  stupidities, 
against  which,  the  poet  tells  us,  even  the  gods 
fight  unvictorious.  The  higher  class  of  minds 
have,  indeed,  been  largely  gained  over.  But 
there  is  little  limit  to  the  endeavor  that  must  be 
put  forth  before  any  impression  can  be  made 
upon  that  inert  mass  which  prefers  to  remain 
content  with  any  degree  of  error,  however  great, 
in  preference  to  making  any  attempt  to  correct 
340 


SPELLING    REFORM 

it,  however  slight.  Still,  this  is  the  usual  ex- 
perience of  all  movements  which  aim  to  over- 
throw "the  reign  of  ill  custom" — to  use  Jon- 
son's  words — which  has  long  prevailed.  The 
advocates  of  reform  of  English  orthography  can 
expect  nothing  different.  But  they  can  be 
encouraged  by  the  recollection  that  the  efforts 
of  men  in  the  past  engaged  in  even  harder  enter- 
prises have  after  long  years  of  struggle  been 
carried  to  successful  completion,  because  the 
combatants  themselves  have  been  sustained  by 
the  hope,  and  have  acted  under  the  inspiration, 
that  what  ought  to  be  is  to  be. 


VERBAL     INDEX 


about,  adv.  and  prep.,  77. 

accede,  v.,   254. 

acre,  aker,  n.,  26,  27. 

active,  a.,  271. 

aecer,  n.,  27. 

asra,  n.,   122. 

Eether,  «.,   122. 

after,  prep.,   10 1. 

again,  a<it;.,   119. 

aghast,  a.,    177,   290. 

agile,  a.,  270. 

ah,  inter jec,    170. 

ail,  v.,  309,  314. 

aile,  n.,  87. 

aisle  (aile,  ile,  yle),  n 

126,   137,   181. 
ale,  11.,  87,  309,  314. 
allowd,  p.p.,  319. 
ambassador,  -our,  n., 

212,  221. 
amphitheater,  -re,  n., 
anchor,   n.   and  v.,    17 
annual,  a.,   130. 
annuity,   n.,    130. 
answer,  v.,   10 t,    172. 
ant,  n.,  299. 
anterior,  -our,  a.,  211. 
antique,  a.,    105. 
antre    (antar,    antrec),    t 

34. 

any,  a.,    i  ig,    120. 
archangel,  w.,   186. 

'3  343 


77. 


197. 

•SI- 
8. 


archbishop,   n.,   186. 
are,  v.,   79,   269. 
asafoetida,  n.,   152. 
author,  -our,  w.,  206,   213, 

220,   223,   292,  320. 
autumn,  n.,    168. 
awful,  a.,  312. 
aye,  adv.  and  n. ,   77. 
ayther     (either),     a.     and 

conj.,    146. 

back,   ».,    lyi,   220,   291. 

balm,   n.,    102. 

banisht,  p.p.,  3x9. 

bar,  n.  and  u.,   102. 

bard,  p.p.,  319. 

bare,  a.,  309. 

bath,  «.,   102. 

bead,  ».,  333. 

bear,  n.  and  ti.,   309. 

become,  becum,  v.,  268. 

bed,   n.,    7,7,1,. 

been,  p.p.,   124,   136,   262— 

264. 
bethral(l),  v.,   257. 
"bile,"  v.,   134. 
billet,  -doux,  ».,   169,   181. 
l:lo(jd,  n.,   132,   153. 
Boston,  n.,  302. 
Botolph,  St.,  «.,  303. 
bow,  n.,   169. 
break,  v.,   115. 


VERBAL    INDEX 


breeches,  n.,  pi.,  124,  136. 

broad,  a.,   114. 

build  (bild.  byld),  v.,   124. 

builded,    built,   p.p.,    184. 

bullock,  n.,   171. 

burn,  v.,   105. 

business,   «...   124. 

busy,  a.,   124. 

but,  adv.  and  conj.,  105. 

buy,  v.,  77,   126,   157. 

byast,  p.p.,  319 

cag,  «.,   120. 

calf,  w.,  102,  103,  162. 

calm,  a.,    102,  329. 

candor,   -our,  n.,  212. 

canoe,  n..   152. 

caprice,  m.,   105. 

car,  n.,   102. 

catcal(l),  w.,  257. 

catch,  z;.,   120. 

center,  -ve,n.,  28,  30,  31,  33. 

centry,   n.,  29. 

centure,  w.,  29. 

chance,  n.  and  u.,   loi. 

chart,  w. ,  260. 

check,    cheque,   n.,    159. 

chirurgeon,  «.,  298. 

choir,  n.,  77,   186. 

Cirencester,  n.,  296,  301. 

clamor,    -our,    n.,    231. 

cleave,  y.,  311. 

clerk,  n.,   113. 

climb,  clime,  v.,   165,   166. 

cognizance,  n.,  260. 

college,  colledge,  n.,   188. 

colonel,   n.,   262. 

color,    -our,    n.,    196,    206, 

228. 
comb,  n.,    165,    166. 
come,  cum,  v.,  268. 
complete,      compleat,     a., 

121. 


compt,  H.  and  v.,  163. 
comptroller,   «.,    162,    188. 
conceit,  conceipt,  n.  180. 
condemn,  v.,    168,   264. 
condemnation,   n.,    168. 
confessor,  -our,  w.,   197. 
confind,  p.p.,  319. 
congratulate,  v.,   102. 
conspirator,  -our,  w.,  220. 
contemn,  v.,  264. 
controller,   n.,    162,   288. 
convey,  z'.,  8. 
coold,  p.p.,  319. 
coquette,  n.,   260. 
coronel,  n.,   262. 
coud(e),  pret.,    179,  319. 
cough,  n.,   77,   156. 
could,  pret.,   179,  319. 
count,   w.   and  v.,    162. 
critick,  m.,  292. 
critique,   n.,   105. 
crum,    cruinb,    n.,    167. 
cupboard,    w.,    183. 
czar,  n.,   165. 

dance,  w.  and  v.,   loi. 
danger  (dainger),  n.,  87. 
debit,  w.,    173. 
debt,  det,  n.,   5,    172. 
deceit,  n.,  8,   180;  deceipt, 

180. 
deign,  v.,  8,   284. 
diameter,  «.,  8. 
diocese,     diocess,    n.,     60- 

68. 
disdain,  y.  and  «.,   S. 
docile,  a.,   270. 
doctor,   -our,   n.,    220. 
does,  v..    132. 
done,  ^./'.,   269. 
door,   n.,   127,    153,  293. 
doubt,  dout,  n.,   5,   172. 
duwnfal(l),  n.,  257. 


344 


VERBAL    INDEX 


downhil(l),  n.,  257. 
dress,  v.,  311. 
ductile,  a.,  270. 
dumb,  a.,   165,   166. 
duty,  n.,  310. 
dwelled,  dwelt,   p.p., 
dye,  n.  and  u.,   77. 

eager,  a.,  33. 
eclat,  «.,   169. 
economy,  «.,   152. 
economic,  n.,   152. 
edit(e),  v.,  267. 
eh,  interj.,  104,  115,  17 
either,   a.   and  conj., 

146-148. 
emmet,  w.,  299. 
emperor,  -our,  n.,  197, 

221,  320. 
empty,  a..   179. 
enclosed,  ^./'.,  319. 
encyclopedia,    -psedia, 

122. 
engine,   n.,   270. 
England,  n.,  261. 
English,  a.,  261. 
era,  «.,   122. 
error,    -our,    n.,    205, 

221,   223. 
ether,  n.,   122. 
etiquette,  n.,  260. 
exceed,  w.,   254. 
Exeter,   Excester,   n., 
exterior,   -our,   a.,   211 
eye,  n.,  77,   126. 

faild,  p.p.,  319. 
fancy,  n.,  8,    102,  288 
fantasy,  n.,  288. 
far,  a.  and  adv.,   100, 

329- 
fast,  adv.,  311. 
father,  «.,  113,  133,  32 


1S4. 


126, 


206, 


302. 


113. 


fatigue,   n.,    105. 
faveiir,  Fr.  n.,   210. 
favor,  -our,  n.  and  v.,  205, 

206,  209,    222—227,  234, 

236. 
feel,  v.,   104. 
feign,  v..   284. 
felt,  p.p.,   184. 
fetid,  foetid,  a.,    152. 
fiber,   -re,  n.,  28,  31. 
fill,  7;.,    104. 
flood,   n.,   132,    153. 
floor,  n.,   127,   153. 
fonetic,  a.,   287. 
fool,  n.,   105. 
foot,  n.,    128,    129. 
foreign,  a.,    176. 
forestal(l),  i;.,   259. 
forgetful (l)ness,  n.,   258. 
fortuitous,  a.,    130. 
fortune,   n.,   130. 
fought,  p.p.,   77. 
four,  num.,  77. 
frendly,   a.,    151. 
frendship,   «.,    151. 
friend,    frend,    n.,    150. 
full,  a.,   105. 
ful(l)ness,   n.,   258. 
futile,  a.,   270. 

gage,  gauge,  guage,  v.  and 

n.,    116-119. 
gaol,   n.,    115,   116. 
genuine,  a.,   271. 
ghastly,  a.,    177. 
gherkin,  n.,    177,   178. 
ghost,  n.,    177. 
give,  y.,  269. 
glass,  n.,   loi,    102. 
governor,     -our,     «.,     197, 

212,   221. 
grass,  n.,   10 1. 
great,  a.,   115,   144. 


345 


VERBAL    INDEX 


grotto,  «.,  334. 
guage,  V.     See  gage, 
guard,  }i.  and  v.,   113. 
guardian,  n.,   113. 
guild,  n.,   124. 
guilt,   n.,   124. 
guy,  M.,    157. 

ha,  inter].,   170. 

haddock,  n.,   171. 

hale,  a.,    15. 

half,  n.  and  atiy.,  102,  103. 

hallelujah,  n.,  170,  1S3. 

halo,  n.,  334. 

hammock,   ».,   171. 

harlequin,   n.,   260. 

hassock,   n.,    171. 

haunch,  ».,   113. 

haunt,  71.,    113. 

hautbois,  m.,   181. 

have,  v.,   269. 

havoc,  havock,  n.,   171. 

head,  «.,  300,  ^^2- 

heal,   w  ,   15. 

health,  n.,   17. 

hear,  u.,  333. 

heard,  pret.  and  /?./>.,  334. 

hearken,  v.,    113. 

heart,  n.,    113. 

hearth,  «.,   144. 

hed,  heed,  n.,  300. 

heifer,  n.,   iiq,   145. 

height,  «.,  77,   126,   145. 

heir,  n.,   114. 

hero,  n.,  334. 

heved,  n.,  300. 

hexameter,  n.,  8. 

high,  hye,  a.,   182. 

hillock,  n.,   171. 

historick,  a.,   292. 

hole,  a.,    15,   319. 

hol(e)some,  a.,  319. 

honnour,  «.,   234. 


honor,  n.  and  t;.,  5,  8,  194- 

237- 
honorable,  honourable,  a., 

8,   203. 
honorary,  a.,   8. 
horror,  -our,   «.,   221,   231. 
hostile,  a.,   270. 
hot,  a.,    14,   15. 
hour,  M.,    198. 
housewife,  n.,   259. 
humor,  -our,  n.,   195,  203, 

205,   232. 
huzzy,   n.,   260. 
hy:Tin,  n.  and  i;.,    168. 

iland,   n.,   290. 
impoverisht,  />./>.,  319. 
impugn,  v.,   285. 
infantile,  a.,   270. 
Ingland,  n  ,  261. 
Inglish,  a.,   262. 
innovator,  -our,  n.,  220. 
instal(l),  v.,   257. 
interior,  -our,  a.,  211. 
intrigue,  w.,   105. 
inveigh,  v.,  8. 
inventor,  -our,   n.,  320. 
irreconcil(e)able,  a.,   257. 
island,   n.,    iSi. 
isle,  n.,   181. 

jail,  w.,   115,    116. 
jeopard,   v.,    119. 
jocose,  a.,   26. 
joke,   M.,   26. 

kay,  n.,   141. 

keg,   n.,    120. 

kennel,  w.,    120. 

"  ketch,"  v.,   120. 

key,   n.,   122,    145. 

key  (quay),  ».,   141,   142. 

kiln,  n.,   t68. 


346 


VERBAL    INDEX 


knave,  394-396. 
knife,  n.,  307. 
knoll,  11.,  307 
knowledge,    knowlege, 
188. 

labor,  -our,  n.  and  v., 
203,  205,  209,  211, 

232.  319- 
lackey,    lacquey,    n., 
ladder,  n.,  307. 
lamb,  n.,   165,    166. 
last,  a.,   loi. 
late,  a.,  329. 
laught,  p.p.,  3x9. 
lead,  v.,  and  lead,  n., 
legislator,   -our,   n.,   22 
leisure,  n.,   119. 
leopard,  n.,   119. 
lie,  n.  and  v.,  77. 
lieutenant,  w.,  262. 
limb,  lim,  n.,    167. 
limn,  v.,   168. 
literature,  w. ,    130,   131 
lot,  n.,  307. 
loud,  a.,  307. 
love,  w.  and  v.,  269. 
lucre,  lukar,  n.,  28. 
luster,  -re,  m..  28,  29. 

machine,  n.,   105. 
magazine,   n.,    105. 
many,  a.,    119,    120. 
marine,  a.,    105. 
massacre,   n.,   26. 
masquerade,  n.,  260. 
mate,  n.,   103. 
mattock,  n.,   171. 
meager,  -re,  o.,  28,  29, 

33- 
memento,  «.,   334. 
Messiah,  -as,  n.,   170. 
met,  p.p.,   103. 


n.. 


196, 
228, 

159- 


313- 
o. 


31. 


meter,  -re,  n.,  8,  28,  29,  33. 
mirror,   -our,   n.,    197. 
iniscal(l),  v.,  257. 
miter,  -re,  n.,  28. 
mixt,  /?./>.,  37. 
mold,  mould,  n.,  319. 
monarch   (k),  «.,  319. 
mood,  n.,    153. 
most,  a.,   128. 
motto,  «.,  334. 
mouth,  w.,  98. 
musick,  n.,   292. 

nap,  n.,  307. 

native,  a.,   271. 

nausea,  n.,   294. 

nayther  (neither),  a.,   146. 

neck,  «.,  307. 

negro,   n.,  334. 

neither,    a.,    126,    146-148. 

nigh,  nye,  a.,   180. 

niter,  -re,  n.,  28,  31. 

nonpareil,  n.,    119,    145. 

numb,  a.,   167. 

nut,  «.,  307. 

oath,  n.,  98. 

obey,  71.,   104. 

oblige,  f.,    105. 

oblique,  a.,   105. 

odor,  -our,  n.    232,  236. 

of,  prep.,    162. 

oh,  inter j.,   170. 

onur   (honor),   «.,    198. 

opprest,  ^./J.,   319. 

orator,   -our,   n.,   221,  320. 

our,  pr.,   153. 

overfal(l),  n.,  257. 


pack,  /7.p.,  319. 
packet,  pacquet,  n.,   159. 
])ath,  n.,  98,   102. 
penury,  «.,    130. 

347 


VERBAL    INDEX 


penurious,  a.,   130. 
people,  n.,   122. 
phantasy,  n.,  288. 
phantom,  n.,  8. 
philosophy,   n.,  287. 
phonetic,  a.,  287. 
phthisic,  n.,  2g8. 
phthisis,  M.,   165. 
pickt,  p.p.,  225. 
piece,  n.,  310. 
"pint,"  w.,  133. 
pique,  n.,   105. 
plait,  «.,   138. 
plant,  n.,   10 1, 
pleasure,  n.,   119. 
plum,  plumb,  «.,  167. 
plumb,  a.,    166. 
police,  n.,   105. 
possessor,  -our,  ».,  221. 
posterior,  -our,  a.,  211. 
pour,  v.,   155. 
prayer,  «.,   114. 
precede,  v.,  8. 
preceptor,  -our,  w.,  220. 
prejudice,  «.,   271. 
pretty,  a.,   124,   260. 
proceed,  v.,  8. 
professor,  -our,  n.,  220. 
profile,  w.,   105. 
prosaick,  a.,  292. 
psalm,  «.,   103,   165. 
pseudo,  prefix,  165. 
ptarmigan,  m.,   165. 
publick,  a.,  292. 
publisht,   p.p.,  225. 
puft,  p.p.,  319. 
put,  11.,    106,   124. 

quadrille,  n.,  260. 
quay,  n.,   122,   141-143. 
quick,  a.,   291. 
quinsy,  n.,  298. 
quire,  n  ,   186. 


rain,  n.  and  v.,  311. 
rancor,  -our,  n.,  232. 
raspberry,      rasberry,      »., 

180. 
rather,  adv.,   102. 
raven,  n.,  307. 
reacht,  p.^.,  225. 
read,  v.,  333;  ^r^^,  333. 
receipt,  receit,  n.,  8,    180. 
recognizance,  n.,  260. 
reconcil(e)able,   a.,   257. 
rector,  -our,  n.,  220. 
red,  pret.,  319. 
red,  a.,  333. 
redoubt,  n.,   174. 
redoubtable,  redoutable,  a. 

174. 
redoubted,     redouted,     a., 

174. 
reign,  m.  and  v.,  284,  311. 
rein,  m.  and  v.,  104,  311. 
reinstal(l),  v.,  257. 
rendezvous,  «.,   172. 
reporter,  reportour,  n.,  197 
reveller,  revelour,  n.,   197. 
rhinoceros,  n.,    150. 
ridiculous,    rediculous,    a., 

87. 
rigor,  -our,  n.,  232. 
rile,  v.,   134. 
ring,  n.,  307. 
rioter,   riotour,   ».,    197. 
risk,  risque,  m.,   159. 
roil,  u.,   134. 
roof,  n.,  307. 
root,  n.,   128,   129. 
route,  «.,   154. 
routine,  n.,   105. 
rusht,  p.p.,  225. 

saber,  sabre,  w.,  28. 
sack,  n.,   i-ji,  220. 
said,  p.p.,   119. 

348 


VERBAL    INDEX 


salt-peter,  -re,  n.,  31,  34. 

says,  V-,   119. 

scene,  n.,   175. 

scent,  n.  and  v.,  175,  289. 

scepter,  -re,  n.,  28,  29,  31, 

33'   175.  319- 
sciatica,  n.,   175. 
science,  n.,   175. 
scimitar,  n.,   175. 
scintilla,  n.,    175. 
sciolist,  n.,   175. 
scion,  f?.,   175. 
scissors,  n.,   175. 
scythe,  n.,   175. 
secede,  v.,  254. 
sed,  p.p.,  319. 
senator,  -our,  n.,   197. 
sent,  «.,  289. 
separate,  seperate,  v.,  iii. 
sepulcher,   -re,   «.,   28,   29, 

31.  34- 
servitor,    -our,    n.,    197. 
sew,  v.,    127,   149. 
shew,  v.,   127,   149. 
shoe,  w.,   128,    152. 
should,  pret.,    170,  319. 
shund,  p.p.,  319. 
sick,  a.,   171,  220,   291. 
sieve,  n.,   124. 
sleight,  n.,   126,   145. 
slept;  p.p.,    184. 
slough,  n.,  313. 
snatcht,  /'.p.,  319. 
solemn,  a.,    168. 
solemnity,  m.,   168 
sovereign,  sovran,  a.,  177. 
spectator,  -our,  n.,  220. 
specter,  -re,  n.,  28. 
"spile,"    w.,     133. 
squinancy,     squinasy, 

squinsy,   n.,   298. 
stay,  v.,   141. 
steak,  n.,   115. 


stirrup,  w.,   295. 
stock,  n.,  291. 
strew,  y.,   127,   149. 
stupor,  -our,  n.,  212. 
succeed,  v.,  254. 
successor,     -our,    n.,     197, 

320. 
superior,  -our,  a.,  320. 
supprest,    /J.^.,    225. 
surgeon,  «.,   298. 
sword,  n.,   172. 

tailor,    -our,  w.,  220. 
tarry,  v.,  313. 
tarry,  a.,  313. 
tear,  w.,  314. 
terror,    -our,  n.,  221. 
Thames,  n.,   185. 
theater,  -re,  n.,  28,  29,  30. 
then,   adv.,  96,   97. 
their,  pr.,    114. 
there,  adv.,   114. 
they,  /?r.,    104,   133. 
thick,  a.,   220,  311. 
thin,  a.,  96,   97. 
thou,   pr.,    153,   155. 
through,    thru,    prep.,    39, 

293- 
thumb,  thum,  n.,  167. 
thyme,  w.,    185. 
tierce,  w.,   132. 
till,  conj.,s3S- 
tisik,   tizzic,   m.,   299. 
tithe,  «.,   98. 
toe,  M.,    126,   129. 
tongue,  n.,   159,  268. 
torpor,  -our,  n.,  212. 
Towcester,  n.,  296,  301, 
trait,  n.,   169. 
traitor,  -our,  n.,  197. 
trough,  n.,   156. 
try,  v.,  77. 
tsar,  M.,    165. 


349 


VERBAL    INDEX 


tutor,  -our,  n.,  320. 
two,  num.,   172. 

unquestiond,  p.,  319. 

unrol(l),  v.,   257. 

until,  prep,  and  conj.,  335. 

uphill,  a.,   257. 

ure    (hour),    n.,    igS. 

valor,  -our,  n.,  232. 

vanquisht,   p.p.,    225. 

vast,  a.,   loi. 

vein,  w.,   104. 

vext,    vexed,    p.p.,    37. 

view,  n.,   149. 

vigor,  -our,  «.,   224,   232. 

villain    (villian),    n.,    87. 

viscount,  n.,   181. 

volume,  n.,   130. 

voluminous,  a.,   130. 


warrior,  -our,  n.,  212,  320. 

weather-gage,    n.,    118. 

where,  a<iy.,    114. 

Whig,   n.,  87. 

whole,      a.,      15,      319. 

wholesome,  a.,  319. 

whot,  a.,    14,    15. 

wind,  n.,   126. 

wolf,   w.,   162. 

women,  n.  pi.,   124. 

wood,  n.,   153. 

woud,  /?rrL,  319. 

would,  pret.,  77,  179,  319. 

wound,  n.,    154. 

ye  (the),  98. 
yeoman,   n.,   12/,   148. 
you,  your,  pr.,  153,  155. 
young,  a.,   77. 
youth,  n.,  'j'j. 
yt  (that),  98. 


GENERAL    INDEX 


a,  as  in  fare,  represented 
by  ai,  by  ay,  by  e,  by 
ei,   114. 

"a,  broad,"  109,  136;  rep- 
resented by  an,  by 
aw,  by  o,  by  oa,  114; 
by  ou,   114,   156. 

"a,  long,"  an  e  sound,  103, 
114;  represented  by  ai, 
by  ay,  by  ea,  by  ^i,  by 
ey,  by  ^,  by  ao,  by  cm, 

a,     long,     represented    by 

ua,  by  ea,  by  ^,  by  azi. 

113. 
a,    short,    represented    by 

ua,  by  at,   114. 
a,  sounds  of,  100-103,  104, 

106;  weakened  to  ^,  267; 

represents  short   e,   119, 

120;  represents  short  o, 

126. 
Academies,  influence  of,  59. 
Addison,    Joseph,    30,    31, 

ae,  digraph,  disappear- 
ance of,  122,  123;  repre- 
sents   "long    e,"    122. 

at,  digraph,  represents  a 
of  fare,  136;  "long  a," 
115.  136;  "long  i,"  Tj, 
126, 137;  short  e,iig,  136. 

3 


Allen,  Grant,   117. 

Alphabet,  for  what  in- 
vented, 73;  English,  76; 
insufficiency  of  Roman, 
97,  99,    107'.  _ 

American  spelling,  so-call- 
ed,   18,   25-29,  32. 

Analogical     spelling,     251, 

254.  332-334- 

Anglo-French  words,  234, 
2S8. 

Anglo-Saxon,  27,  150,  175, 
267.   291,  300. 

ao,  digraph,  represents 
"long  a,"  115. 

Arber,  Edward,  151,  268. 

Armstrong,  John,  216,  217, 
220. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  59-70. 

Ascham,  Roger,  127,  151, 
268. 

Association,  sentiment  of, 
10-16,  20,  35,  36. 

Ash,  John,   228. 

an,  digraph,  represents, 
"broad  a,"  114;  "lung 
a,"    115;   long  a,    113. 

aw,  digraph,  109,  136;  rep- 
resents "broad  a,"   114. 

ay,  digraph,  represents  a 
of  fare,  114;  "long  a," 
115,  140;  "long  e,"  122, 


51 


GENERAL    INDEX 


141;  "long  t,"  77;  short 
e,   119. 

h,  unpronounced,  165-167, 

172-175. 
Bacon,  Sir  Francis,  27. 
Bailey,  Nathan,   64,   205. 
Black-letter,   212. 
Bolingbroke,      Henry      St. 

John,    viscount,    217. 
Boston,  89,  302. 
Boswell,    James,    218-221, 

292. 
Bullokar,  John,  64. 
Byron,      George      Gordon 

Noel,  Lord,   131,   191. 

c,  letter,  79,  80,  97,  305; 
before  e,  26-28;  unpro- 
nounced, 172,   175,  289. 

Cambridge  University,   19. 
Cedo,  derivatives  of  Latin, 

8,  253. 
Celtic  origin,  words  of,  1 56. 
ch,  digraph,   185;  sounded 

as  k,  kw,  and  sh,  186. 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  63,  80, 

197,   274. 
Child,  Francis  James,  8,  9, 

91. 
Clarke,  Mary  Cowden,  2q. 
Cocker,   Edward,   64. 
Coles,  Elisha.  64,  205. 
Congreve,   William,   225. 
Consonants,      sounds      of, 

160  ff. 
Copyists    of    manuscripts, 

273-275- 

d,  crossed  letter,  97. 

d,   letter  and   sound,    1S4, 

188. 
Derivation,  influence  of,  on 

3 


spelling,  II,  190,  200, 
209,  210,  212,  243,  247— 
251.   283-307. 

Dickens,  Charles,  271,  316. 

Dictionaries,  English,  277. 
See  under  Ash,  Bailey, 
Bullokar,  Cocker,  Coles, 
Dyche  and  Pardon, 
Penning,  Johnson,  John- 
ston, Kenrick,  Kersey, 
Knowles,  Martin,  Min- 
sheu,  Nares,  Perry,  Phil- 
lips, Sheridan,  Smart, 
Todd,  Walker,  Webster, 
Worcester. 

Dictionary,  New  Historical 
English,  115,  139,  142, 
144,   195. 

Digraphs,   108,   134-160. 

Diphthongs,   108,    133. 

Dryden,  John,  318. 

Dyche  and  Pardon's  Dic- 
tionary, 64,  65,  205,  228. 

e,  letter  and  sound,  103, 
106,  265;  final,  unpro- 
nounced, 265-271;  me- 
dial unpronounced,  246, 
257;  represents  "short 
u,"   132. 

" e,  long,"  105,  121,  136; 
represented  by  ce,  122, 
123;  by  ay,  142;  by  ea, 
142,  143;  by  ee,  by  ei, 
by  eo,  148;  by  ey,  142; 
by  ie,  149;  by  (e,  152. 

e,  short,  represents  long  a, 
and  "short  u,"  113; 
short  i,  123,  260,  262; 
is  represented  by  ai,  by 
ay,  by  ei,  1 19;  by  a,  119, 
120;  by  ea,  119,  143;  by 
eo,  119,  14S;  by  ie,  150. 

52 


GENERAL    INDEX 


ea,  digraph,  represents  a 
of  fare,  114;  of  father, 
113,  144;  "long  a,"  115, 
146;  "long  e,"  122,  143, 
333;  short  e,  119,  143. 
333;  "short  M,"  132,  143, 
334. 

eau,  represents  long  o,  i2-j. 

ed,  termination,  sounded 
as  t,  37. 

ee,  digraph,  109,  136,  145; 
represents  "long  £>,"  122, 
136,  263;  short  i,  124, 
136. 

ei,  digraph,  represents  a  of 
fare,  114,  145;  "long 
a,"  104,  115,  145;  "long 
e,"  122,  145-148;  "long 
7,"  77,  126,  145-148; 
short  e,  119,  145. 

Ellis,  Alexander  John,  274, 

304. 

eo,  digraph,  represents 
"long  e,"  122,  148;  long 
o,  127,  148;  short  e,  119, 
148. 

er  or  re,  ending,  8,  26-35. 

eu,  digraph,  represents 
long  u,  129;  u  with  y 
element,    130,   148. 

ew,  digraph,  represents 
long  o,  127;  long  u,  129; 
u  with  y  element  130, 
148. 

ey,  digraph,  represents 
"long  a,"  104,  115,  142, 
145;  "longc,"  122,  142, 
145;  long  i,  77,   126. 

/,   letter  and   sound,    162; 
displacing  ph,  287,   288. 
Farquhar,  George,  225. 
French   Academy,   48,    51. 


French  methods  contrast- 
ed with  English,  42- 
48. 

French  derivation,  words 
of,    163,    169,    181,    196, 

197.  233,   289,   290. 
French    orthography,     47, 

71- 
French,  Old,  118,  176,  177, 
179,   201. 

g,    letter    followed    by    e, 

157;  unpronounced,  172, 

176,  285. 
Garrick,   David     147. 
German,  orthography,   13, 

49,    50,    166,    304,    306, 

322. 
gh,  digraph,  170,  172,  181. 
Gladstone,  William  Ewart, 

53-  ,  .  ,      ,. 

Glossographia      Anghcana 

Nova,   64. 
gn,  words  beginning  with, 

;63,    164. 
Grammar   of   writers   once 

altered,   21. 
Greek     origin,    words     of, 

165,   175,   176,   177,  287, 

288,   294,   299. 
Grimm,  Jakob,  90. 

h,  letter  and  sound  un- 
pronounced, 163,  165, 
170,  172,  177-179,  198, 
199,  290;  initial, dropped, 

198.  303.  307- 

Hare,  Julius  Charles,  224- 

226. 
Heine,    Heinrich,    189. 
Holmes,    Oliver    Wendell, 

130.    149- 
Hume,  David,  214-218. 


353 


GENERAL    INDEX 


i,  letter  and  sound,  97, 
104,  105,  106;  represents 
"short   u,"    132. 

"  i,  long,"  a  diphthong,  105, 
^33'  159;  sound  of  rep- 
resented by  at,  by  ay, 
by  ey,  by  i,  by  uy,  by 
y,  by  ye,  77;  by  ei,  77, 
126;  by  ie,  77,  149;  by 
oi,   77,   134;  by  ui,   158. 

i,  short,  represented  by  e, 

123,  124,     260;    by    ee, 

124,  136,  262-264;  by 
ie,  124;  by  o,  124;  by  n, 
124;  by  Mz",  124;  by  y, 
123. 

iV,  digraph,  represents 
"long  e,"  122,  149; 
"long  i,"  77,  126,  149; 
short  i,  124;  "short  u," 
132. 

ieu,  represents  c[,  262; 
long  u,   129. 

i7g,  ending,  269,  270. 

ine,    ending,    269,    271. 

Italian  language  and  or- 
thography, 49,  201,  2S7, 
322. 

ite,  ending,   269. 

ive,  ending,  269,  271. 

/,  sounded  as  y,  183. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  64,  65, 
102,  123,  127,  137,  145, 
205,  207-214,  218,  2ig, 
220,  221,  222,  223,  227, 
228,  244,  254,  257,  278, 
326. 

Johnston,    William,    155. 

Jonson,    Ben,    127,    255. 

Journal  des  Dcbats,  6r. 


k,    letter   and    sound,    26- 


28,    97,     163,     170,    171, 

172,   260,   290,   291-293, 

303-306. 
Kenrick,   William,    155. 
Kersey,  John,   205. 
Knowles,  James  Sheridan. 

66. 

/,  letter  and  sound,  172, 
179.  257,  258,  262,  335. 

Lamb,  Charles,  266. 

Landor,  Walter  Savage, 
225-227. 

Latham,  Robert  Gordon, 
68. 

L'Estrange,  Roger,   115. 

lo^ue,  words  ending  in, 
^58. 

m,  letter,    162. 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babing- 

ton.   Lord,   267,  316. 
Manley,   Mrs.,   87. 
Martin,  Benjamin,  605,  205. 
Metric  system,   55. 
Middleton,  Conyers,  217. 
Millar,  yVndrew,   217. 
Milton,     John,     144,     225, 

299,  312. 
Minsheu,  John,   64. 
Mitford,   William,   289. 
Moore,   Thomas,   191. 
Morris,    William,    191. 
Miiller,   Max,  91. 

n,   letter   and   sound,    165, 

264. 
Nares,    Robert,    146,    155. 
w£j,   digraph,    185.    186. 
Normandy,  dialect  of,  115. 
Northern   English    dialect, 

144. 
Notes  and  Queries,  236. 


354 


GENERAL    INDEX 


(?,letterand sound,  105,  io6, 
126,127,267;  represents 
"broad  a,"  114;  long  w, 
128;  short  i,  124;  short 
It.  128;  "short  «,"  132. 

o,  long,  represented  by 
eatt.,  127,  1 53 ;  by  eo,  127, 
153'  t)y  ^^'  127;  by  oa, 
126;  by  o^,  126;  by  00, 
127  153,  by  OH,  127, 
156;  by  ow,   127,   1 56. 

oa,  digraph,  represents 
"broad  a."  114,  151; 
long  o,   126,   151. 

oc,  ock,  ending,   171. 

oe,  digraph,  in  classical 
words,  152;  represents 
long  o,  126,  T52;  long  u, 
128,  152;  "short  u,"  133, 

.152- 

oi,  diphthong,  133;  repre- 
sents "long  i,"   77. 

00,  digraph,  represents 
long  o,  127,  153;  long  u, 
128,  152;  short  M,  128, 
152;  "short  u,"  132,  152. 

or,  our,  ending,  history  of, 

193-237- 

Orthography,  English, crea- 
tion of  printing-houses, 
23.   24,  35.  272-278. 

OS,  oes,  ending,  334. 

ou,  diphthong,  133,  153, 
154;  digraph,  represents 
"  broad  a,"  1 14,  1 56;  long 
o,  127,  156;  long  u,  128, 
153;  short  u,  128,  156; 
"short  u,"  132;  various 
sounds   of,    77,    156. 

ow,  diphthong,  156;  di- 
graph, represents  long 
o,  127,   156,   169. 

oy,  diphthong,   i^t,. 


p,  letter  and  sound,  163; 
pronounced  as  b,  183; 
unpronounced,  i 79-181. 

Paris,   dialect  of,    115. 

Perry,   William,   £55. 

ph,  digraph,   165. 

Phillips,  Edward,  64.  205. 

Phonetic  orthography,  71- 
75'  145.  239,  241,  243, 
299,  321-330. 

Phonetic  sense,  lost  to 
English,  308. 

Pope,  Alexander,  154,  155, 
217.  266. 

Practical  men,  easy  omni- 
science of,  91. 

Printing,  effect  of,  on  spell- 
ing,  272-278. 

Printing-house,  English  or- 
thography the  creation 
of,  23,  272-278. 

Professors,  guilelessness  of, 

91-         .  ... 

Pronouncing    dictionaries, 

145.  3257328. 

Pronunciation,  spelling  de- 
signed to  represent,  11, 
73-76;  made  to  accord 
with  the  spelling,  259- 
265. 

Proper  names,  orthography 
of,  296,  301-303. 

Public,  hostility  of,  to- 
ward reforming  spelling, 
6,    17. 

Publishing  houses,  orthog- 
raphy adopted  by,  5, 
20-23. 

q,  letter,   97. 

qu,  digraph,   260. 


r,  letter  and  sound,  79,  80. 


355 


GENERAL    INDEX 


Ramsay,  Allan,  217. 

Reasoning  powers,  im- 
pairment of,  335-337. 

Richardson,  vSamuel,  86. 

Ritson,  Joseph,  245-248. 

Roosevelt,  President,  his 
order  about  spelling,  i, 
59.  308. 

Runic  letters,  97. 

s,  of  pleasure,  represented 
by  5,  by  si,  by  z,  by  zi, 
187. 

5,  unpronounced,  172,  181, 
290. 

Sanskrit,    100. 

Scott,   Sir   Walter,    247. 

sh  (of  ship),  digraph,  repre- 
sented by  ce,  by  ci,  by 
s,  by  si,  by  t,  by  ti,  by 
xi,    187. 

Shakespeare,  William,  22, 
24-30.  32-35.  116,  194, 
195,  201-203. 

Sheridan,  Thomas,  65,  207, 
221,   263,  326. 

Signs,  insufficiency  of,  in 
English,    96,    97,   99. 

Smart,  Benjamin  Huin- 
phrey,  66,  147,  230,  263. 

Sounds,  75,  76;  number  of, 
96,  107;  ignorance  of, 
78,   241. 

Southey,  Robert,   131. 

Spanish   spelling,    49,   322. 

Spelling,  difference  be- 
tween present  and  past, 
20-23,  24,  25;  ignorance 
of  nature  and  history  of, 
56  fT. 

Spelling  reform,  attitude 
of  inen  of  letters  toward, 
58;    attitude    of   women 


toward,       82-86;       not 

limited  to  English  race, 

48. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  14,  155, 

184,   1S5,  225. 
Sterne,  Lawrence,   52. 
Strahan,   William,   217. 
Swift,  Jonathan,  31. 

t,  represented  by  ed,  184, 
185;  unpronounced,  165, 
169,   172,   181. 

Taylor,   Williain,   131. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  142,  155 

th,  digraph,  surd  and 
sonant  sounds  of,  96- 
99;   represents  t,    185. 

Thackeray,  William  Make- 
peace, 316. 

"Thorn"  letter,  97,  98. 

Times,  London,  18,  60,  61, 
62,  67,  68,  69. 

Todd,   Henry  John,   68. 

Tonson,  Jacob,  30. 

Tooke,  John  Home,  227. 

Trench,  Richard  Chenevix, 
285,  294,  299.  308,  327. 

u,  letter  and  sound,  97, 
128,  129,  267, 293;  repre- 
sents short  i,  124;  sound- 
ed as  w,  157;  with  y 
element,  represented  by 
u,  by  ne,  by  eii,  by  ew, 
130. 

u,  long,  represented  by  o, 
by  oe,  by  oh,  128;  by  00, 
128,  152;  by  ue,  by  ui, 
by  eu,  by  ew,  by  ieu, 
129. 

u,  short,  represented  by  o, 
by  oil,  128;  by  00,  128, 
15.3- 


356 


GENERAL    INDEX 


"u,  short,"  105,  106,  III, 
113,  131;  short  sound 
of,  represented  by  u,  by 
oe,  132;  by  o,  132,  153; 
by  00,  132,  153;  long 
sound  of  represented  by 
e,  by  i,  by  o,  by  ie,  132; 
by  ea,   132,   144;  by  on, 

132.   153- 

ua,  digraph,  represents 
long  a,  1 13;  short  a,  114; 
as  wa,  157. 

ue,  digraph,  represents 
long  u,  129,  158;  as  we, 
157;  final, unpronounced, 
158. 

ui,  digraph,  represents  long 
u,  129,  159;  short  i,  124; 
"long  i,"   159. 

Unaccented  syllables,  in- 
distinctness of  sound  of, 
no. 

Uniformity  of  spelling,  de- 
sire of,  2 7 7-2 78. 

uy,  digraph,  represents 
long  t,  77,  126,  157;  short 
i,  126. 

V,    letter    and    sound,    97, 

162,   172. 
Vanbrugh,  Sir  John,  225. 


Vowel-sounds,  progressive 
movement   of,   99-113. 

w,  letter  and  sound,  156, 
157,  178;  unpronounced, 
165,  172;  followed  by  It, 
163,  164;  followed  by  r, 
163,   164 

Walker,  John,  65,  66,  loi, 
102,  139,  141,  147,  154. 
155,  169,  178,  207,  221, 
222,  223,  230,  260,  263, 
292. 

Webster,  Noah,  228,  248- 

255- 

Wesley,  John,   224. 

Whitney,  William  Dwight, 
91,   100. 

Women,  attitude  of,  tow- 
ards spelling,  82-86;  for- 
mer indifference  of,  to 
spelling,  86. 

Worcester,  Joseph  Emer- 
son, 89,  229,  252. 

X,  letter,  97,   165. 

y,  represents  short  i,  123; 
"  long  i,"  77,  126. 

3,  unpronounced,   172. 


THE    END 


/VA    001  295  666  o 

CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  San  Diego 


DATE  DUE 

'M  3  0  1977 

JUN  0  5  1977 

,m  11    ''' 

f^.n  n  V    -to   nrp"n 

MAYjii  lii8 

i 

SFp  1  V  f -3 

nnT89»^ft^ 

^^f  1    mf  V  ••»%•»* 

CI  39 

UCSD  Libr. 

%^ 


